LISTADO DE DEMANDAS DEL MUNICIPIO DE MAO

These authors may still differ on two issues. First, they may have different views on what Heidegger’s conception of a transcendental framework amounts to. A Heideggerian transcendental framework cannot be a mere conceptual scheme in the sense of a set of rules for using words, because Heidegger holds that the world as that in which we are involved is mean- ingful independently from language. World is characterized by holistic sig- nificance (Bedeutsamkeit) and language can be used for articulating pre-ex- isting meanings: “To meanings, words accrue.”60_{This is a major difference} between Heidegger and Wittgenstein. For Wittgenstein, words have mean- ing because of the way in which they are used, so that there can be no meaning without standard uses of words, although Wittgenstein also stresses that language games cannot be understood apart from forms of life.

Second, weak transcendentalism as an interpretation of being idealism may be combined with various interpretations of Heidegger’s entity realism. What does Heidegger mean when he says that “entities are, quite indepen- dently of the experience by which they are disclosed . . . ” (puzzle passage [2])? If we focus on puzzle passage (3), which nests the independence claim within a deeper dependence of Dasein (“When Dasein does not exist, ‘in- dependence’ ‘is’ not either . . . ”), it is plausible to interpret the indepen- dence of entities with regard to Dasein as a feature attributed to entities

within a particular transcendental framework ([m], empirical realism).

Whereas Mulhall holds (p) that Dasein encounters both occurrent and ready-to-hand things “as phenomena which exist independently of its en- counters with them,” most authors (Blattner, Dreyfus, Frede, Schatzki) re- strict this independence to the framework of occurrentness (o).61_{Which of} these two conflicting views is correct as an interpretation of Being and Time? At first sight, neither the text of puzzle passage (3) nor its context in sec- tion 43c permits us to answer this question with certainty. Although Hei- degger links the characteristic of independence with the notion of reality,

he distinguishes between a wider and a narrower sense of “reality” in the first paragraph of section 43c. In the wider sense, reality is the mode of be- ing of all nonhuman entities in the world, either occurrent or ready-to- hand. In the narrower and more traditional sense, reality is the mode of be- ing of occurrent entities only.62_{Since Heidegger does not tell us in which} of these two senses he is going to use the word “reality” in the remainder of section 43c, it may seem that both interpretation (p) and interpretation (o) are permitted by the text of Being and Time.

One cannot argue that one of these apparently permitted interpretations is more charitable than the other because it attributes a philosophically su- perior opinion to Heidegger. The reason is that Heidegger’s notions of oc- currentness (Vorhandenheit), readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit), and indepen- dence are too ill-defined for constructing a satisfactory philosophical view. For example, Heidegger does not distinguish between things accidentally used as tools (one picks up a stone in order to throw it at a dog) and tools as artifacts (a hammer). The stone is both dependent on Dasein and indepen- dent from Dasein. On the one hand, it is dependent because it becomes a tool when it is picked up and loses its status as a tool again when it is thrown away. On the other hand it is independent because humans did not produce it and because it may continue to be after all humans have per- ished. The hammer also is both dependent and independent with regard to Dasein, but in a somewhat different sense. It is dependent in the sense that it has been made on purpose as an artifact in which its function is inscribed, so to say, and because it fits in with a referential totality of functions (of nails, wood, etc.). If humans did not exist, hammers would not exist either. But the hammer is also independent because it continues to exist and to be ready for use even when nobody is aware of its existence; indeed it may continue to exist when all humans have died.63

Yet a more careful reading of section 43 in the context of Being and Time as a whole justifies interpretation (o), which restricts to occurrent things Heidegger’s “realism” with regard to entities said to be “independent” from Dasein. There are three textual arguments for this interpretation. First, Hei- degger starts section 43b by declaring that “nothing else is meant by” the term “reality” than things occurrent (vorhanden) within-the-world.64 _Be- cause puzzle passage (3) follows Heidegger’s ruminations on the notion of reality, it is plausible to read it as concerned primarily with occurrent things. Second, Heidegger intimates in section 43a that the notion of “indepen- dence” is associated with the notion of reality.65 _{Combining these two} points, one comes to the conclusion that Heidegger links the notion of “in- dependence” to the notion of occurrence. Finally, the last sentence of puz- zle passage (3) relates independence from Dasein, in the sense of continuing to be there without Dasein, explicitly to Dasein’s understanding of occur- 184 Herman Philipse

rentness: “But now, as long as there is an understanding of Being and there- fore an understanding of occurrentness, it can indeed be said that then [to wit, when Dasein does not exist] entities will still continue to be.”66

The most important point is, however, that according to puzzle passage (3), this independence from Dasein depends itself upon Dasein:“When Da-

sein does not exist, ‘independence’ ‘is’ not either, nor ‘is’ the ‘in itself.’” In

other words, the independence of entities with regard to Dasein is a charac- teristic which depends upon a transcendental framework. Only because oc- current entities are encountered within such a framework can they be en- countered as independent from us. The entity realism Heidegger defends in puzzle passage (3) is an empirical realism concerning occurrent entities. But what about realism at the transcendental level? Is Heidegger also a transcen- dental realist or is he a transcendental agnostic with regard to entities? Whereas puzzle passage (3) seems to exclude transcendental realism, puzzle passage (2) seems to affirm it.67