Abstract

The principal contention of this dissertation is that we can understand Heidegger's concept of original temporality in Sein und Zeit by seeing it in the light of Kant's concept of temporal synthesis in the first Critique. Kant develops an account of how our understanding of what it is for an object to be objective, i.e., independent of mind, is grounded in a form of temporal synthesis, viz., taking objects to stand under laws of time-determination. So for Kant, the objectivity of objects is constituted by a form of temporal synthesis. Heidegger's analyses of original temporality, world-time, and the "vulgar conception of time" aim to show how an articulated ontology of three sorts of Being is grounded in three sorts of temporal structure. So for Heidegger, the understanding of the Being of a being is based in an understanding of its temporal form. Heidegger's original temporality is thus a philosophical heir to Kant's temporal synthesis. ;Chapters 1 and 2 investigate Kant's theses that the original representation of time is not synthetic; that temporal synthesis is required for every empirical perception; and that the causal principle is the temporal form of objectivity. Chapter 3 uses Husserl's theory of internal time-consciousness and Dilthey's theory of distinctively human patterns of historical existence as a bridge to Heidegger's enquiry into original temporality. ;Chapters 4, 5, 6, and the Conclusion investigate Heidegger's system of patterns of temporality and ontological understanding as adumbrated in the final quarter of Sein und Zeit. Chapters 4 and 6 present the metaphysical and phenomenological detail of Heidegger's account of Dasein's Being as care, and argue that original temporality is a nonsequential manifold that structures care. Chapter 5 presents Heidegger's temporal ontology of equipment and objects of perception. Chapter 6 argues that original temporality is also explanatory of the nature of world-time and on that basis to be understood as "original time." The upshot of the Conclusion is that Heidegger's account is not quite successful, so that we must abandon certain central aspects of his metaphysics in Sein und Zeit