Heidegger: On the Nature of Things

Dissertation, Duquesne University (1984)
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Abstract

Heidegger's investigation of the meaning of Being led him to consider the nature of things in several of his works. As his understanding of the meaning of Being evolved, so too did his grasp of the thingly character of the thing. This work documents the growing sophistication with which Heidegger treated of things in his writings. ;We consider Heidegger's conception of thing at three different stages. First, in Being and Time; then in "The Origin of the Work of Art;" and finally, in the essays, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Thing." ;Heidegger is led to reject traditional interpretations of the thing because they do not allow thing to presence as thing. In Being and Time Heidegger distinguishes between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand. Thing is more truly determined in its Being not by a fixing in thought of its properties, but by being taken up into the world of Dasein's concerns. In "The Origin of the Work of Art," Heidegger distinguishes thing from equipment and work. In the world/earth strife which characterizes the work-being of the work, there is a happening of truth. In light of this truth the equipmental-being of equipment--reliability--appears. Here the thing is determined in its Being according to the manner in which it is taken up into the world first opened by the work itself. ;Today all things presence as "standing-reserves" stockpiled for consumption. Mortals are challenged to this ordering of things by Gestell, the essence of technology, a mittence of Being. Only if there is a turning within Being to which mortals respond by "Building Dwelling Thinking," will it be possible for things to presence as a gathering of the onefold fourfold of earth and sky, mortals and divinity. ;Leading conclusions: The thing can be comprehended in its Being only within the context of an involvement. Heidegger's understanding of that involvement undergoes revision each time he attends to the thing; Heidegger reaffirms at each step the reciprocal nature of the world-thing relationship. Thing serves to reveal/conceal world, and world serves to reveal/conceal thing; As there is a happening of truth at work in the work, so there is a happening of truth at work in things, when things presence as the gathering of the unified fourfold

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