Abstract

Being and Time argues that we, as Dasein, are defined not by what we are, but by our way of existing, our “existentiell possibilities.” I diagnose and respond to an interpretive dilemma that arises from Heidegger's ambiguous use of this latter term. Most readings stress its specific sense, holding that Dasein has no general essence and is instead determined by some historically contingent way of understanding itself and the meaning of being at large. But this fails to explain the sense in which Being and Time is a work of fundamental ontology, concluding in Heidegger's claim to have found the meaning of Dasein's being in the concept of originary temporality. On the other hand, readings that stress the general sense of “existentiell possibilities” find Heidegger on a fruitless quest for the transcendental conditions necessary for Dasein's existence, which seems to founder on the claims that Dasein is constitutively thrown, factical, and “in-each-case-mine” [jemeinig]. Both readings are problematic and, I contend, result from a failure to disambiguate and explain the ontologically unique relationship between the specific and general aspects of Dasein's essence. I argue that we can better explain this relationship, Heidegger's method for investigating it, and the sense in which Dasein has an essence that is open to philosophical investigation, if we read Being and Time's ontology of Dasein in terms of what Anton Ford calls “categorial” genus-species relationships