95 Theses, moving onward from Heidegger

1. Heidegger’s method in SZ can best be understood, in the final account (and this means in the theory of temporality) as one that is centered on genesis, even a geneticism.
1. As a philosophy of genesis it is not in any obvious way a Kantianism, or a transcendental philosophy (or a structuralism).
2. As a philosophy of temporality, SZ is a philosophy whose basic concept is genesis and this is how it understands phenomenality.
3. At the heart of genesis (i.e. within temporality) SZ stumbles upon a peculiar, abstract form of non-experiential spatiality.
1. Lemma: If we can characterize phenomenology, or the philosophy of genesis as a philosophy of temporality, then we can characterize Structuralism (narrowly defined to philosophy of language – e.g. Saussure, Benveniste, Ducrot) as a philosophy of spatiality.
2. The SZ-attempt at a temporality-centered philosophy, a philosophy of generation, discovers –unwittingly – a spatial reference which turns it into a higher structuralism.
4. In the architecture of SZ, temporality properly understood, i.e. out of itself and not via detour, grounds and unifies Care.
1. The character of this founding and unifying is under-appreciated if not misunderstood.
5. The discourse thus takes a strong turn towards a variant of a transcendental argument.
1. However, it is transcendental in its discursive structure only.
2. It is not a transcendental philosophy in the sense of the Copernican Revolution (i.e. Subject foundation).
3. We can call this discursive resemblance with transcendental conditions a structuralism.
6. Heidegger’s auto-critique expressed in post-SZ writings concerns, on the one hand, the terminology of ‘conditions of possibility,’ and on the other, the a priori presentation of ‘difference.’ This is an indication of the critique of the earlier transcendental structuralist position from the standpoint of a philosophy of genesis.
1. While it may be possible to find this processual understanding of difference and possibility already supplied in SZ, this depends on a retroactive reading of Heidegger’s work.
2. It can be said that SZ understood as a structuralist (transcendental) project subsequently gets transformed into a geneticism viz. the ‘history of being’ and the dynamicization of possibility.
7. Independently of theses 1-4, we can see that the SZ conception of temporality, read on its own terms, is a hierarchical typology of temporalities.
1. Insisting now on the plural in ‘temporalities,’ SZ is radically different from the tradition of ‘Manichean’ theories of time opposing two types. (Many historical instances here).
2. The hierarchisation also comports a hierarchisation of types of ‘presence’ and this is the first instance of a ‘critique of the metaphysics of presence.’ (Many subsequent historically tributary references here).
3. Though the hierarchical typology is presented (pros hemas) in SZ clearly by moving from Dasein to temporality, it is equally clear that there is a strong equivalence (en auto) between these two notions and not a necessary dependence.
4. Wherefrom it follows that the hierarchy can be understood as organized according to criteria immanent to temporality. (Many subsequent historical instances of misunderstanding here)
5. Lyotard’s hypothesis of an open-ended list of temporalisations can then be confronted here.
8. The strong equivalence between Dasein and temporality means that the latter is not founded on the former; indeed temporality (which is different from ‘time,’ and grounds ‘time’) has no other foundation than itself.
1. Temporality, on our reading of SZ, has no condition heterogeneous to itself. But, again, ‘time’ is based on something other than ‘time.’
2. From which it follows that the imputation of a ‘temporal idealism’ is mistaken.
9. The alternative to the reading above is the classical derivational reading of temporality which becomes unsustainable viz. teleology:
1. On the classical derivational account, temporality is derived from and is dependent upon the structure of Care. Care, as presented in the analytic of Dasein is importantly marked by the feature of worumwillen. This latter term is Heidegger’s rendering of the Aristotelian ou eneka.
2. Hence, this reading makes, not just the human being but time itself and temporality depend on a conception of final cause, of purposivity, of teleology and of goal-directedness.
3. Such a classical derivational reading of temporality (like all readings of SZ which emphasize the first half of the book at the detriment of the second half) is guilty of a deep anthropomorphism in its ontology and metaphysics.