On authenticity in Heidegger’s Being and Time

In the first, Chapter I of the thesis will identify the project undertaken, and methodological approach adopted by Heidegger in Being and Time. By tracing the development of the question of Being up to the account of radical historicality offered up in Being and Time, it will be suggested that a proper access to the meaning of Being is that which guides Heidegger’s thought. What will be suggested is that Heidegger seeks primarily to address Being in its universal sense, while simultaneously seeking to reinterpret what the universality of Being would entail. By highlighting the significance of the themes of recovery and recollection for Heidegger’s philosophy, Chapter II aims to interrogate the extent to which Heidegger adequately distances himself from similar accounts which place ‘forgetfulness’ and ‘remembrance’ at the heart of their thinking. This will involve assessing Heidegger’s proximity to, and distance from the Platonic theory of reminiscence, as well as assessing the extent of his departure from Husserlian phenomenological thought. Chapter II will then ask: if Heidegger is concerned with providing a radical account of Being, and yet may similarly be seen to ally himself to certain historical methodological approaches, does he not run the risk of performing the role of a mere traditional metaphysician? In moving from a discussion of the fundamental importance of a retrieval of the question of Being for Heidegger’s philosophical project, the thesis will then assess the important role which is played by the ‘future’ in Heidegger’s thought. Through an analysis of the authenticity of Dasein, Chapter III will illustrate how Heidegger intends to overcome a traditional, totalizing, account of Being. Through a radical re-interpretation of time, Heidegger aims to illustrate how Dasein – itself ontologically structured by time - must be seen not as a fact of reality, possessive of certain possibilities to be developed, but rather as an ‘ability-to-be’. Coupled with an undertaking to recover mans’ fundamental and originary relation to the question and significance of Being will be implicated the movement of Dasein towards it own self understanding as potentiality / possibility. Finally, taking Heidegger’s assertion that time is the unificatory ground of Being, it will be asked whether or not time is intended to play a solely ontological function in Heidegger’s thought. Ultimately, it will be suggested that time plays both an ontological, as well as epistemological role in Being and Time