The classical philosophy of time (χρόνος) worked out in Aristotle’s Physics, for example, was of no use to Heidegger in his search for the source of being, because Book IV of that treatise focuses on time as a continuous series of “nows” and considers time as a thing that is. Heidegger argues that the so-called “temporal” character of οὐσία can be gathered from Plato’s designation of the “really real” (ὄντως ὄν) as ἀεὶ ὄν and ἀΐδος οὐσία (usually “eternal being”), 128 although Heidegger argues that “the more sharply οὐσία is grasped and associated with the ‘categories,’ the more the relation to time gets shrouded.” 129 In fact, Heidegger’s own notion of “time” differs radically from what he found in the Greeks. This entails a gesture toward the present and thus toward “time.” 127 The stable constancy is pure presence- being-present in the full sense…. 126Īnd in speaking of being as a thing’s stability he says: To say that something is means that it is present, or better, that it is (as we must say in German) present-to in the present moment. “Presence” for the Greeks is παρουσία, shortened to οὐσία and “presence” for the Greeks means being. What about Plato’s and Aristotle’s most general name for being: οὐσία as stable presence? Heidegger espies in that term a hint of what he will eventually call by the (potentially misleading) term “time.”Īnd finally the basic term οὐσία (which is decisive for the future terms “substance” and essentia) harbors within itself the relation to “time”: it has the character of presence in itself (more pointedly: οὐσία-παρουσία as “one’s holdings,” something at one’s disposal, one’s possessions, something stable in itself and constant).

Thomas Sheehan - What does Heidegger mean by “time”? What does Heidegger mean by “time”?

Heideggers being and time