Sunday, July 23, 2006

But what passes itself off as even more self-evident is just that beings "are," or, as we say, are determined "by Being." When we say "beings are," we distinguish each time between beings and their Being, without noticing this distinction at all. Thus we also do not ask what this distinction consists in, from whence it originates, how it remains so obvious, and where it gets the right to this obviousness. We also do not find the slightest reason to concern ourselves with this distinction between Being and beings in the first place.

When we consider the whole of beings, or even just attempt to think about it in a vague way, we leave what we envisage for the most part indeterminate and indistinct, whether beings or Being, or both of them alternately and indefinitely, or each separately but in a barely comprehensible relation. From here originates an old confusion of speech. We say "Being" but really mean beings. We talk about beings as such and mean, at bottom, Being. The distinction between beings and Being seems not to obtain at all. If it does obtain, ignoring it seems not to cause any particular "harm."

Things take their course. However, we do not first hold ourselves within the above-mentioned distinction between Being and beings when we reflect upon the whole of beings and actually consider its Being. The distinction pervades all of our speaking about beings, indeed, it pervades every comportment toward beings whatever they might be, whether toward beings that we ourselves are not (stone, plant, animal) or beings that we ourselves are.

When we say, for example, completely outside scientific deliberation and far from all philosophical contemplation, "the weather is fine," and then by "weather" we mean something actual and existing, and we mean with "fine" the actual condition, and we mean with the inconspicuous "is" the manner in which this being, the weather, thus and so exists. Hence we mean the Being of the being that is called "weather." The "is" does not thereby name a being, unlike "the weather" and "fine." Conversely, "the weather" and "fine" name a being, unlike the "is."

The weather is determined by the warmth of the sun, by the radiation of the earth and by its soil conditions, by wind (air current), by relative humidity, by the electrical conditions of the atmosphere, and more of the same. We can directly observe and, with the appropriate apparatus, assess the weather and what is relevant to it. We can decide if the weather is good or bad or "doubtful." What is good or bad or doubtful about the weather, we can see, sense. We can encounter the weather and its condition. But wherein lies the "is"? What does it mean, what does it consist in, that the weather "is" and that it "is" fine? The fine weather - that we can be glad about, but the "is"? What are we to make of it? We can read from the hygrometer whether the air is more or less humid, but there are no instruments to measure and comprehend the "is" of what we mean by "is." Thus we say with complete clumsiness: there are hygrometers, wind gauges, barometers that indicate how the weather "is," but there are no "is"-gauges, no instrument that could measure and take hold of the "is." And yet we say the weather - itself, namely, - IS thus and so. We always mean by this what a being is, whether it is, and the way it "is." We mean the Being of beings. While we mean something like this, namely Being, we nevertheless attend only to particular beings.

In the case above we are interested only in the weather conditions, only in the weather, but not in the "is." How many times a day do we use this inconspicuous word "is," and not only in relation to the weather? But what would come of our taking care of daily business if each time, or even only one time, we were to genuinely think of the "is" and allow ourselves to linger over it, instead of immediately and exclusively involving ourselves with the respective beings that affect our intentions, our work, our amusements, our hopes and fears? We are familiar with WHAT is, beings themselves, and we experience THAT they are. But the "is" - where in all the world are we supposed to find it, where are we supposed to look for something like this in the first place?

-Martin Heidegger, Basic Concepts, 22-24
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