MYSTERY OF TIME
…for Heidegger “time” refers ultimately to something more fundamental than time as ordinarily conceived. It refers to “originary temporality.” Time is not the abstract “container” that we imagine “clock-time” to be, but a basic structure of Dasein’s being – William Blattner
We see from the previous that humankind’s accepted ideas about thinking didn’t impress Heidegger. Metaphysics is more a case of avoidance, evasion and power dynamics, only detected as such once the Question of Being is sincerely raised. For most people this question of questions, with no easy answer, continues being disregarded.
…Heidegger doubts that genuine thinking will ever have much impact on a public dominated - as it is in the present age - by the Gestell of an uncompromisingly technological world that is diametrically opposed to the spirit of thinking – John A. Tauber
In Being and Time, Heidegger explains that the main reason Dasein is capable of raising the Question of Being is due to his experience of time. More correctly, it’s due to his ontological temporality, without which as Dasein we’d be almost indistinguishable from cows in a field. We’d certainly not function or think like the humans we are, not even close.
Avoiding the Question of Being, we choose instead to dedicate ourselves to religion, metaphysics, scientism, technology and “common sense.” It’s been a roaring success. We’ve seen to it that the real questions are avoided and nullified. We’ve erected structure upon structure to make sure the questioning leading to communion with Being remains unspoken.
We’ve forgotten, says Heidegger, that real thinking is a matter of silence and deep listening. What’s he talking about? That makes absolutely no sense! Where’s my spanner?
Dasein is essentially temporal: it looks ahead to its own death, it surveys its life as a whole in conscience and resoluteness, it is essentially historical. Dasein's being is intimately bound up with temporality – Michael Inwood
If we told someone that they live in the present by way of the future, what kind of reaction would we expect? We’d probably see some furrowed brows and head-scratching. We’d probably be laughed at and off. And yet this is exactly what constitutes existence for one and all. Why did it take Heidegger to spell it out?
Most of us have at one time or another, stared at a clock and wondered at it. Time is quite a mystery, so much so that most top scientists refuse to answer questions about it. Is it just a way of measuring a never-ending series of “now’s?” Is time just a repetitive series of distinct moments? Is the past real, or is it a phantom of memory? After all, when we remember any incident in our past, we rarely think that that previous “I” was also in the process of remembering himself or herself in some previous situation. What does that do for our common-sense notion of the present? Every time we experienced what we know as the “present” we “remember” something that happened in our past. Apparently, the present is made of of non-stop memories of the past.
Heidegger’s theory of time focuses not on the past, but on the future. He stressed that, existentially-speaking, we only experience the present by way of the future. It sounds paradoxical. After all, doesn’t the future come after the present? Doesn’t it lie ahead of us?
Technically the answer is yes, but philosophically the answer is no! Heidegger’s phenomenological observation revealed that the past is where we plant the seeds of what we want to be, and the future is the time when we realize our dreams, becoming what we wanted to be. The present is, in this regard, from where (or when) we take a reading of progress made. It is also where we plant a new desire of what we want to be tomorrow.
…the basic tense of existential time is future. It moves not from past through present to future, but out of the future through the past to the present -– Marjorie Grene
For Heidegger then, the future is the primary tense, but not only because it is where we plan to actualize what we desire to do or be. The future is when we die.
Heidegger’s description of time involves analysing the term existence. The syllable ex means to “stand outside.” The word “ecstasy,” from the Greek ekstasies, also means to “stand beyond.” Heidegger employed the word to describe an ontological or fundamental condition of Dasein; namely his ability to uncouple from the timeflow and stand outside it. As a result, Dasein is consciously aware of his past, present and future. He is to this extent transcendental.
(Let us briefly note that this ecstatic panoramic view of one’s temporality is due to the Imagination. More on this later.)
