Heidegger's Hidden inchoherence

       Martin Heidegger was a 20th century German Philosopher who belonged to the school of Continental Philosophy. Continental philosophy is a school that differs from Analytic philosophy in that it seeks to ask questions, and answer them, on the basis of understanding ideas as a whole and their history, rather than Analytic philosophy which seeks to treat each statement as an independent claim and judge their truth independently and then draw inferences on them. Heidegger specialized in the field of Ontology and Phenomenology and the philosophy of time. He is best known for being the one that asked "The Question of Being". 

       The Question of Being is really just that. It is external to the usage of the word "being" and all of its conjugated forms such as "be", "is", "are", "it" and to some extent "that". It really boils down to: "What is Being?" and by that Heidegger meant; What is it, that all things said to have Being share that classifies them as having Being? Heidegger saw the classical metaphysical definition of being: "that which is" To be tautological, circular and lacking. Technically, this occurred before Carnap had developed Internal vs External Questions and the distinction would have been useful to Heidegger. Basically, if being is "that which is" that really doesn't tell us anything about it. For as Bill Clinton once asked "what is is?" or rather, "is" being a conjugated form of "being" creates a rather circular statement. For if being is "That which is" is that not different from saying "being is that which has being" or "to be is to have being". As you can see, we're not really getting anywhere, for the meaning of being has not, and cannot on Heidegger's view, be built or predicated on its own meaning. This is circular reasoning and is fallacious as well as being question begging in argument form.The fundamental problem is, after asking these questions and getting these answers, do you really feel like you know anything about "what it means to be?" or "what is being"? Think about it, you could certainly repeat the answer, but if you asked someone "what is being?" and they responded "that which is!" and you were then asked to go explain that and how it works to someone, wouldn't you think it incoherent babble? Well that's because it is.

     Today we can recognize that Heidegger's Question is use of external language and could most probably receive a more fair shot or answer if it were attempted today. I even plan to do so with a new semantic theory I'm working on I call "semantic quantification". In my estimation the post-Russell philosophers have veered away from this topic due to its heady nature, as well as most people holding the misconceived presumption that Heidegger had the final say that was of any meaning on the topic. However I will show that is not the case.

       Most of Heidegger's contemporary criticism was that in the form of language. His contemporaries said that he made parsimonious use of language that was either unintelligible, necessarily complex, or only served to obfuscate his argument. This, however, I feel can best be attributed to the fact that he was right before Carnap and the study of Semantics had come a long way in the short time after his main work was completed. I also feel it is due to his hidden incoherence as I will show.

       Heidegger's fundamental methodology employed to answer the question was formulated in two ways. First, he posited the thought experiment of Dasein which is a being concerned with Being. Heidegger's view was that all being was pointed at or 'concerned' with something. If we conceived of a being who was pointed at Being, it could perhaps give us insight into how to answer the question as well as some insights to the nature of what exactly we were questioning. Second, he took the continental approach. He sought to attempt to understand the meaning of being by examining its use through the history of metaphysics and examining the fundamental assumptions of the original Greek philosophers. He did this by "deconstructing" the layers of inferences and definitions that relied on an understood meaning of being and attempted to understand it comparatively in relation to its associated inferences.

     I feel Heidegger's fault lie in his use of language, but not in a manner of obfuscation. It is his reliance on an understood meaning of being that under girds his rejection of the Greek metaphysical systems. This can be attributed to the fact that he used internal language to answer an external question, or rather, he simply underestimated the profound depth to which his question shook the whole of thought. For the primary director of his inquiry was the circular nature of the previous definitions of being. That is to say, he believed that tautological or circular answers didn't tell us anything nor did they answer the question in a meaningful way. Can you see the incoherence? That is to say, he rejected the circular definitions because; "There cannot 'be' this sort of reasoning if it is to have any meaning". How is that? How can there not 'be' this sort of reasoning? We have not yet cashed out what it means to 'be' to any effect that it can serve as a criterion of value. How can the answer not 'be' "that which is"? We still have no recollection of this "being" is or what things that posses "being" have. How can we know anything about what can 'be' at all? At least, we can't until he answers the question. This is why his question remains unanswered: Because his motivating principle, his controlling law, itself was predicated on self-defeating logic.

       Now, a proponent of Heidegger might say: "This seems skew to his argument, as he was asking continental questions and analyzing logic is obviously analytic" well this is true. I don't feel this saves his reasoning as just because you ask continental-style question, this doesn't make self-defeating logic valid. There is also the response that it was just a semantic mistake and that he unknowingly went back and forth between internal and external language. Even if this is true it doesn't save his failed approach. I offer that this question cannot be addressed with an ontological predispositions, as it is the very question of ontology itself. This doesn't mean we can all of a sudden make statements outside of logic and have any meaning, though, it just means a different approach is required. In conclusion, I will say I agree with Heidegger in one respect: I believe the best way to answer the question is to look at it as a relational definition. That is we should ask the question of "what is being?" in a sense that takes its relation to other concepts as a dividing or discerning principle. Stay smart and always ask questions!