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History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena
"... an excellent translation of an extremely important book." The Modern Schoolman
This early version of Being and Time (1927) offers a unique glimpse into the motivations that prompted the writing of this great philosopher's master work and the presuppositions that gave shape to it. Theodore Kisiel's outstanding translation permits English readers to appreciate the central importance of this text for the development of Heidegger's thought.
348 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1925
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About the author
Martin Heidegger
515 books3,235 followersMartin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 24, 2017
Commonly known as the "second draft" of Being and Time, this volume not only covers most of the themes that are to appear in the first division of Being and Time (Daseinanalytik), but also includes a unique "introduction" to phenomenology - actually a "destructive" one.
After a brief review of the situation of philosophy by the end of the 19th century, the author proposes three "fundamental discoveries of phenomenology": intentionality, categorial intuition, and the original sense of the apriori. In Heidegger's eyes, these, rather than Husserl's emphasis on the study on "pure" consciousness, are what preeminently distance phenomenology from other ways of philosophizing. With the doctrine of intentionality, a relation between Dasein and its world and preceding both, the Cartesian picture of the subject-object dichotomy is substantially dissolved. It now becomes clear that the unworldly, isolated subject is but a theoretical construction; for any entity like Dasein to be isolated, its being-in-the-world is already presupposed, albeit sometimes manifesting itself in a privative mode like the independent subject. Categorial intuition then remedies philosophy's obsession with individual empirical objects, broadening the subject matter of intuition - not to be associated with mysticism, but as plain as everyday comportment - to the realm of general categories. The idea here is that any understanding of the particular already presupposed a pre-understanding, not yet articulated but nevertheless functioning, of the categories corresponding to the particular. In a short form: understanding is always an understanding as. This, then, leads to the original sense of the apriori: instead of any appeal to a higher realm of entities, the apriori is actually the horizon within which any perception, judgment or simply practical concern are constituted.
But then Heidegger points out that, despite the originality of these discoveries, phenomenology still bears upon itself a traditional understanding of being, especially of the being of the entity that "has" consciousness. In other words, just because Husserl focuses on the emergence of meanings within the stream of pure consciousness, the being of consciousness as well as of the conscious subject is left unquestioned. For example, the sense of the immanent scarcely get clarified in Husserl's works. In Heidegger's view, this leads phenomenology back to the Cartesian tradition, and ultimately to the Greek notion of being as presence [ousia]. This deficiency naturally calls for a more fundamental investigation on the being of Dasein and the meaning of being in general, which Heidegger takes as his lifelong project.
The main part resembles the first division of Being and Time in terms of structure, although expressions and terminology differ here and there. Significantly, Heidegger does not have the notions of Zuhandensein (ready-to-hand) and Vorhandensein (present-at-hand) here. Based on my previous reading of Being and Time, the following differences are noticeable:
First, in this book Heidegger presents a more concrete characterization of facticity. While in Being and Time he only contrasts facticity, a structure of being of Dasein, to factuality, the totality that is discovered within a certain framework of positive science, here he also claims explicitly that facticity is a correlation. This confronts the popular interpretation of facticity as identical to "bare nature", the nature that is not yet idealized by natural sciences, the ultimate inscrutability of what is simply "out there". Although Heidegger admits that nature is an incomprehensible core that, precisely because of its incomprehensibility, motivates attempts of natural science to explain it. This "nature beneath natural science" is close to Bergson's and Scheler's conception. But to identify it with facticity is, according to Heidegger, a naturalization of facticity. Quite the opposite, Heidegger maintains that facticity is a primordial correlation, a "basic structure of life" which adheres to the existence of Dasein. By regarding facticity as bare nature, we already ignore that meaningfulness is only brought about by Dasein's being-in-the-world. If one starts with bare nature and then constructs meaningfulness as stemming from it, it is unexplainable how meanings emerge ex nihilo. This also explains Heidegger's limited and usually negative use of "nature" and his reluctance to explore the sense of the body: they are raised within a horizon that is already limited to beholding. Facticity is rather the integral structure of existence out of which the body and the bare nature becomes manifest.
Second, Heidegger explores here a world that precedes all worlds. By criticizing his earlier notions, in line with Husserl, of "with-world" and "self-world". This view assumes that each Dasein is essentially "worlding", bringing things within its reach into a complex of meaningfulness. These worlding Daseins then reach out for worlds of other Daseins, which constitutes intersubjectivity. In this model, the worlds of different Daseins are in a sense incommensurable. The familiar world and the unfamiliar world have a gap in between. But then the commonality of everyday comportment cannot be explained. The alternative model Heidegger provides assumes that the world is one and the same right from the start. Not independent of Daseins, this world is a virtual framework in which discrepancies may arise but can also be solved. Paradoxically, the unity of the common world is based upon the falling tendency of Dasein: it is the leveling, average mode of Dasein (das Man) that enables and promotes being-with-one-another. Although sociability is not initiated by das Man, it is within das Man that sociability gets anchored. Vanity leads to commonality: we can be with each other only because we are already not quite ourselves, but replaceable roles within a whole network. Accordingly, the annoying others are not so much other people themselves than masks with no one underneath. The bare nature is replaced with the common world, dim as it were, that is lived by das Man. He probably has in mind an image of animal life (or animal-like ones) that, dim and unconscious as it may be, nevertheless functions perfectly well. This is the soil out of which Dasein's self-understanding and self-interpretation grows.
I would recommend the preliminary part to anyone who is looking for a more substantial introduction to Husserlian phenomenology; after all, it is in the spirit of phenomenology that it should be introduced over and over again. It concisely organizes the ideas that are usually diffused within Husserl's work-site-style writings, and penetrates to the core. The main part, however, should not replace Being and Time, even not as an easier version of the latter. It is written with a different problematic, and it lacks the terminological precision and the rigorousness that Being and Time has. For Heidegger scholars that are familiar with Being and Time, however, this book is an interesting documentation of Heidegger's way of thinking, especially when we attend to what he abandons later on - the two books can be read in the same way Heidegger himself reads the two versions of Kant's Critique.
After a brief review of the situation of philosophy by the end of the 19th century, the author proposes three "fundamental discoveries of phenomenology": intentionality, categorial intuition, and the original sense of the apriori. In Heidegger's eyes, these, rather than Husserl's emphasis on the study on "pure" consciousness, are what preeminently distance phenomenology from other ways of philosophizing. With the doctrine of intentionality, a relation between Dasein and its world and preceding both, the Cartesian picture of the subject-object dichotomy is substantially dissolved. It now becomes clear that the unworldly, isolated subject is but a theoretical construction; for any entity like Dasein to be isolated, its being-in-the-world is already presupposed, albeit sometimes manifesting itself in a privative mode like the independent subject. Categorial intuition then remedies philosophy's obsession with individual empirical objects, broadening the subject matter of intuition - not to be associated with mysticism, but as plain as everyday comportment - to the realm of general categories. The idea here is that any understanding of the particular already presupposed a pre-understanding, not yet articulated but nevertheless functioning, of the categories corresponding to the particular. In a short form: understanding is always an understanding as. This, then, leads to the original sense of the apriori: instead of any appeal to a higher realm of entities, the apriori is actually the horizon within which any perception, judgment or simply practical concern are constituted.
But then Heidegger points out that, despite the originality of these discoveries, phenomenology still bears upon itself a traditional understanding of being, especially of the being of the entity that "has" consciousness. In other words, just because Husserl focuses on the emergence of meanings within the stream of pure consciousness, the being of consciousness as well as of the conscious subject is left unquestioned. For example, the sense of the immanent scarcely get clarified in Husserl's works. In Heidegger's view, this leads phenomenology back to the Cartesian tradition, and ultimately to the Greek notion of being as presence [ousia]. This deficiency naturally calls for a more fundamental investigation on the being of Dasein and the meaning of being in general, which Heidegger takes as his lifelong project.
The main part resembles the first division of Being and Time in terms of structure, although expressions and terminology differ here and there. Significantly, Heidegger does not have the notions of Zuhandensein (ready-to-hand) and Vorhandensein (present-at-hand) here. Based on my previous reading of Being and Time, the following differences are noticeable:
First, in this book Heidegger presents a more concrete characterization of facticity. While in Being and Time he only contrasts facticity, a structure of being of Dasein, to factuality, the totality that is discovered within a certain framework of positive science, here he also claims explicitly that facticity is a correlation. This confronts the popular interpretation of facticity as identical to "bare nature", the nature that is not yet idealized by natural sciences, the ultimate inscrutability of what is simply "out there". Although Heidegger admits that nature is an incomprehensible core that, precisely because of its incomprehensibility, motivates attempts of natural science to explain it. This "nature beneath natural science" is close to Bergson's and Scheler's conception. But to identify it with facticity is, according to Heidegger, a naturalization of facticity. Quite the opposite, Heidegger maintains that facticity is a primordial correlation, a "basic structure of life" which adheres to the existence of Dasein. By regarding facticity as bare nature, we already ignore that meaningfulness is only brought about by Dasein's being-in-the-world. If one starts with bare nature and then constructs meaningfulness as stemming from it, it is unexplainable how meanings emerge ex nihilo. This also explains Heidegger's limited and usually negative use of "nature" and his reluctance to explore the sense of the body: they are raised within a horizon that is already limited to beholding. Facticity is rather the integral structure of existence out of which the body and the bare nature becomes manifest.
Second, Heidegger explores here a world that precedes all worlds. By criticizing his earlier notions, in line with Husserl, of "with-world" and "self-world". This view assumes that each Dasein is essentially "worlding", bringing things within its reach into a complex of meaningfulness. These worlding Daseins then reach out for worlds of other Daseins, which constitutes intersubjectivity. In this model, the worlds of different Daseins are in a sense incommensurable. The familiar world and the unfamiliar world have a gap in between. But then the commonality of everyday comportment cannot be explained. The alternative model Heidegger provides assumes that the world is one and the same right from the start. Not independent of Daseins, this world is a virtual framework in which discrepancies may arise but can also be solved. Paradoxically, the unity of the common world is based upon the falling tendency of Dasein: it is the leveling, average mode of Dasein (das Man) that enables and promotes being-with-one-another. Although sociability is not initiated by das Man, it is within das Man that sociability gets anchored. Vanity leads to commonality: we can be with each other only because we are already not quite ourselves, but replaceable roles within a whole network. Accordingly, the annoying others are not so much other people themselves than masks with no one underneath. The bare nature is replaced with the common world, dim as it were, that is lived by das Man. He probably has in mind an image of animal life (or animal-like ones) that, dim and unconscious as it may be, nevertheless functions perfectly well. This is the soil out of which Dasein's self-understanding and self-interpretation grows.
I would recommend the preliminary part to anyone who is looking for a more substantial introduction to Husserlian phenomenology; after all, it is in the spirit of phenomenology that it should be introduced over and over again. It concisely organizes the ideas that are usually diffused within Husserl's work-site-style writings, and penetrates to the core. The main part, however, should not replace Being and Time, even not as an easier version of the latter. It is written with a different problematic, and it lacks the terminological precision and the rigorousness that Being and Time has. For Heidegger scholars that are familiar with Being and Time, however, this book is an interesting documentation of Heidegger's way of thinking, especially when we attend to what he abandons later on - the two books can be read in the same way Heidegger himself reads the two versions of Kant's Critique.
March 21, 2018
I prefer this to Being and Time, and I prefer two of the first men cited in Being and Time to the text itself, Aquinas and Pascal. I have never eaten an egg or seafood in my life. Not all taste buds are created equal.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
i-want-money
April 26, 2014"A translator's introduction to this volume, by Theodore Kisiel, is published separately as 'On the Way to Being and Time: Introduction to the Translation of Heidegger's Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs,' Research in Phenomenology XV (1985)." --from the copyright page.
Google has a substantial portion available for your browsing pleasure::
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZMGw...
February 22, 2016
I first read Heidegger's Being and Time as I entered graduate philosophy studies in the summer of 1969. It was mind-blowingly difficult. I had no idea how he had come to the ideas found in that book. Many years later I re-read the book, and probably understood it much better. But the question remained: how did he arrive at his ideas? After all these years i have found a partial answer: his lectures in the early 1920's have been published and translated, and they provide a very interesting record of his intellectual journey. The title of these lectures and the book was History of Concept of Time. Great title, but the book never gets that far. However, one does get an intensive discussion of the early developments of phenomenology, and Heidegger's own exploration of a phenomenology of Dasein. I had put off reading Heidegger for some years because of my disgust with the man's commitment to Nazism. I have lost none of that disgust, but I am happy to be doing more reading of his work. I recommend this to anyone who wants to tackle Being and Time: read this book FIRST!
December 16, 2008
This is a nice precursor to reading Being & Time, and probably should be read. I especially found it useful in understanding Heidegger's idea of "care" which plays such a central role in B & T. Care is traced through the Phenomenological idea of "intentionality," which Heidegger explicitly rejects. Anyway, this book is probably better if you have some idea of the history of Phenomenology pre-Being & Time, but even if you don't, it's super helpful to understanding Being & Time.
May 25, 2009
Heidegger at his most readable, taking new directions on fundamental problems while he still acknowledges that he has relevant interlocutors (and readers).
(Oh, and in case this even needs to be said, not even remotely a history of the concept of time, but something significantly more interesting - an exegesis of the basic problems of phenomenology. The great joke would be if BPOP were a history of time, but alas, no.)
(Oh, and in case this even needs to be said, not even remotely a history of the concept of time, but something significantly more interesting - an exegesis of the basic problems of phenomenology. The great joke would be if BPOP were a history of time, but alas, no.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2010
The history of the Concept of Time was a much more thorough set of lectures on time and its phenomenological importance; how time is perceived, historical differences in time perception. This is also a much meatier read than Being and Time; there are more numerous examples, and more thorough explanations. It is still recommended that one has some sort of background into perception and phenomenology first before reading.
March 26, 2020
Heidegger is as freaking brilliant as complex. His writing appears impossible at times. Yet, if I've grasped 2%, I'm overjoyed! And I'm delighted with his way of thinking. The only warning : I think the title is a bit misleading as the book is mainly on how Heidegger sees the world and time, not the actual trajectory of the concept of time in the history of thought.
June 30, 2014
Perhaps one of the works I would suggest to introduce someone to Heidegger. It really lays the phenomenological foundations for understanding his work moving forward.
June 3, 2024
Like “Being and Time” (B&T) and most of his other courses, this course/book falls short of its original intention. Time is here discussed only in half of the page at the very end, while the rest of 300+ pages are just “prolegomena” for it. However, this is not a problem at all – as time will be extensively discussed in B&T and several other courses, while this “ prolegomena” is great as it is. This course is in fact the first version of B&T – as Heidegger will rewrite this over the next year in a more systematic and official way, along with the addition of time and Being.
By surveying the crisis in sciences and philosophy up to this time, Heidegger starts here by pointing to the new science of phenomenological research as developed by Husserl around the slogan “to the matters themselves”. Next, he explains the principles of phenomenology, its breakthroughs, the common misunderstandings, and eventually moves to its shortcomings and critique. According to Heidegger, Husserl and his followers fell short in following their anti-dogmatic principle (i.e., “to the matters themselves”) when investigating concepts like intentionality, categorical intuition, a priori, consciousness, space, time, logic, reason, and eventually the human nature. By returning to the radicality of phenomenology, by not letting the subject matter out of his sight, and by acknowledging and not letting himself be influenced by the historical conditions and presuppositions like Husserl and the others did - Heidegger points to the major underlying issues: the neglect of the question of Being in the history of philosophy as well as in phenomenology.
Blinded by the successes of sciences and mathematics, and under the influence of Descartes and Kant – everything is approached as an object, as a substance with attributes, as something to be measured, or similar – in Heidegger's terms as something present-at-hand. Heidegger points out that tools and the like are properly understood only as something ready-at-hand; while humans, language, time, and similar can be properly approached only under a third type of being. Dasein - understood as existence - has not much in common with a stone or a hammer. By revealing these new ontologies and by going deeper than anyone before him, Heidegger shows for example that: human's intentionality and reason are the wrong concepts in phenomenology and that they should be replaced by care, disclosedness, and so on; that subject/object distinction should be replaced with being-in-the-world; that geometric and objective spaces are rooted in human spatiality, that proper sciences and languages lose their essences and relevance when free-floating and not immediately and continuously rooted in Dasein (for example these days “scientists” prophesize the arrival of the AI singularity and similar other absurdities based on this assumption of free-floating sciences), and so on. Eventually, Heidegger wants to show (and he will eventually do it in B&T) that all these are not some separate aspects or attributes of Dasein, that time and space are not some objective/subjective realities/frameworks that contain/make things understandable, or similar – but that “Dasein qua time temporalizes its being.”
This is also the place where Heidegger claims that “One is what one does”, defines “The They”, shows how Dasein loses its authenticity by falling into “The They”, how this falling is an inevitable process and why we all are under its sway as beings-in-the-world, explains the phenomena of idle-talk, curiosity, anxiety (translated as dread here), and so on. The funny thing is that concepts like falling apply not just to the common people, but also to great thinkers like Kant and Husserl - as Heidegger is mainly aiming his phenomenological and ontological destruction at them. As a “fallen” reaction, Husserl saw all these additions to phenomenology that Heidegger introduced here as some strange form of relativism, anthropology, or historicism.
By surveying the crisis in sciences and philosophy up to this time, Heidegger starts here by pointing to the new science of phenomenological research as developed by Husserl around the slogan “to the matters themselves”. Next, he explains the principles of phenomenology, its breakthroughs, the common misunderstandings, and eventually moves to its shortcomings and critique. According to Heidegger, Husserl and his followers fell short in following their anti-dogmatic principle (i.e., “to the matters themselves”) when investigating concepts like intentionality, categorical intuition, a priori, consciousness, space, time, logic, reason, and eventually the human nature. By returning to the radicality of phenomenology, by not letting the subject matter out of his sight, and by acknowledging and not letting himself be influenced by the historical conditions and presuppositions like Husserl and the others did - Heidegger points to the major underlying issues: the neglect of the question of Being in the history of philosophy as well as in phenomenology.
Blinded by the successes of sciences and mathematics, and under the influence of Descartes and Kant – everything is approached as an object, as a substance with attributes, as something to be measured, or similar – in Heidegger's terms as something present-at-hand. Heidegger points out that tools and the like are properly understood only as something ready-at-hand; while humans, language, time, and similar can be properly approached only under a third type of being. Dasein - understood as existence - has not much in common with a stone or a hammer. By revealing these new ontologies and by going deeper than anyone before him, Heidegger shows for example that: human's intentionality and reason are the wrong concepts in phenomenology and that they should be replaced by care, disclosedness, and so on; that subject/object distinction should be replaced with being-in-the-world; that geometric and objective spaces are rooted in human spatiality, that proper sciences and languages lose their essences and relevance when free-floating and not immediately and continuously rooted in Dasein (for example these days “scientists” prophesize the arrival of the AI singularity and similar other absurdities based on this assumption of free-floating sciences), and so on. Eventually, Heidegger wants to show (and he will eventually do it in B&T) that all these are not some separate aspects or attributes of Dasein, that time and space are not some objective/subjective realities/frameworks that contain/make things understandable, or similar – but that “Dasein qua time temporalizes its being.”
This is also the place where Heidegger claims that “One is what one does”, defines “The They”, shows how Dasein loses its authenticity by falling into “The They”, how this falling is an inevitable process and why we all are under its sway as beings-in-the-world, explains the phenomena of idle-talk, curiosity, anxiety (translated as dread here), and so on. The funny thing is that concepts like falling apply not just to the common people, but also to great thinkers like Kant and Husserl - as Heidegger is mainly aiming his phenomenological and ontological destruction at them. As a “fallen” reaction, Husserl saw all these additions to phenomenology that Heidegger introduced here as some strange form of relativism, anthropology, or historicism.
January 14, 2019
Only lacks the Time problem, the book is the best introduction to phenomenology method and a great introduction too of being and time.
December 13, 2025
This was incredibly complex! Heidegger re‑orients the concept of time from being merely an objective measure of moments to a phenomenological structure of lived experience
April 4, 2015
This book was an interesting read, though I cannot say that I understood everything. In fact, I did not understand much. It was still interesting. As most say, the benefit of reading Heidegger lies in the possibilities his work opens, and it is this capacity of having possibilities presented to you that interests me in the History of the Concept of Time.
With Heidegger I have the impression that he does not aim at giving you answers. If a book is entitled the History of the Concept of Time do not expect it to be about time itself. It will not speak of time at all, or it will wait until the end to give you an approximate understanding of what you seek. The History of the Concept of Time is about time, but you only realize that at the last page of the book, that’s when you can relate everything you read to each other and to time, if you were able to read the whole book, that is.
If the last page of the History introduce you to time, this means that the whole book, or what you read of it, shows you problems related to times and possibilities whose aim is to help you find answers for yourself, if such aim is possible at all.
With Heidegger I have the impression that he does not aim at giving you answers. If a book is entitled the History of the Concept of Time do not expect it to be about time itself. It will not speak of time at all, or it will wait until the end to give you an approximate understanding of what you seek. The History of the Concept of Time is about time, but you only realize that at the last page of the book, that’s when you can relate everything you read to each other and to time, if you were able to read the whole book, that is.
If the last page of the History introduce you to time, this means that the whole book, or what you read of it, shows you problems related to times and possibilities whose aim is to help you find answers for yourself, if such aim is possible at all.
July 20, 2013
a first partial draft of Being and Time.
the first part is a kind of "advanced intro to phenomenology", followed by an "immanent critique" of it. it clarifies how "the question of being" arises from phenomenology and it isn't answered by it. and it emphasises several presuppositions in husserlian phenomenology - which heidegger tries to deconstruct.
the second part is a first draft of the first division of SZ.
some ideas are formulated in nuce, some are given more space - and are explained more clearly, with more vivid examples.
it is followed by the beginning of the analysis of death - and, if the reader is familiar with SZ, it stops somehow abruptly.
a nice read if one wants to know where SZ comes from / to clarify for himself some of the concepts from the first division / to understand the source of "the question about being" / to clarify the relation between husserlian and heideggerian phenomenology.
but definitely not a substitute for reading SZ itself. and not even an introduction to it.
the first part is a kind of "advanced intro to phenomenology", followed by an "immanent critique" of it. it clarifies how "the question of being" arises from phenomenology and it isn't answered by it. and it emphasises several presuppositions in husserlian phenomenology - which heidegger tries to deconstruct.
the second part is a first draft of the first division of SZ.
some ideas are formulated in nuce, some are given more space - and are explained more clearly, with more vivid examples.
it is followed by the beginning of the analysis of death - and, if the reader is familiar with SZ, it stops somehow abruptly.
a nice read if one wants to know where SZ comes from / to clarify for himself some of the concepts from the first division / to understand the source of "the question about being" / to clarify the relation between husserlian and heideggerian phenomenology.
but definitely not a substitute for reading SZ itself. and not even an introduction to it.
June 2, 2010
Thus far, the book has been wonderful and a good source of preparation for Being and Time. Heidegger's explanation of Phenomenology and its various nuances has been the only source of difficulty, though the difficulty is managable and is mainly due to my lack of familiarity with Phenomenology and its methods. I especially enjoyed the section on being-in-the-world and knowledge as a derivative mode of in-being of Dasein. I am just beginning the section "Positive exposition of the basic structure of the worldhood of the world" and am looking foward to the rest of the lecture.
July 8, 2009
Introduction is the hardest and most confusing part of this book. Throughout the book Heidegger doesn't really get anywhere, but basically he keeps trying to go to the basics (understanding of Dasein) from first-person view. Toward the end there are some more vague ideas on some side-issues, which I found more interestng.
December 25, 2022
Read this before Being and Time, and then thank me later.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews