For Heidegger, temporality is how time conditions and determines Being in general and Dasein’s being in particular; that is, the way in which time determines and conditions both Being itself and the being of Dasein.
Heidegger uses two German words that mean temporality: Temporalität and Zeitlichkeit. Heidegger uses the word Temporalität when he discusses how time determines and conditions Being in general; he uses the word Zeitlichkeit when what is discussed or investigated is how time conditions and determines Dasein’s being in particular.
The temporal and Temporalität are first presented and defined in Logic: The Question of Truth (1925/26), where Heidegger says that the temporal is what is marked, characterized, distinguished, and indicated in relation to time; where Heidegger says that investigating Temporalität must be carried out by examining the temporal grounds of propositional truth and falsity.
In Being and Time, Heidegger renders more specific the meaning of the temporal and Temporalität to specifically indicate how “Being and its modes and characteristics have their meaning determined primordially in terms of time”. According to Heidegger:
“The way in which Being and its modes and characteristics have their meaning determined primordially in terms of time, is what we shall call its “Temporal” determinateness. Thus the fundamental ontological task of Interpreting Being as such includes working out the Temporality of Being. In the exposition of the problematic of Temporality the question of the meaning of Being will first be concretely answered.“
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
For Heidegger, time is that through which Being is to be understood; time is the scope of any understanding of Being. Another aspect could thus be added to the relation linking together Being, any understanding of Being, and time, according to Heidegger in Being and Time: that the “modes and characteristics” of Being that are announced, or that emerge and are encountered, within any understanding of Being are the temporal determinations of Being.
In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger says that when Zeitlichkeit brings nearer to, leads to, and renders possible an understanding of Being, it is called Temporalität. This means that Temporalität refers to how time determines and conditions Being. Zeitlichkeit, on the other hand, refers to how time conditions and determines the specific being of Dasein.
In other words, Heidegger uses the word Zeitlichkeit when what is determined and conditioned by time is the being of Dasein, but he uses the word Temporalität when what is determined and conditioned by time is Being itself. This is a difference that the English word “temporality” does not convey or render apparent.
If Zeitlichkeit and Temporalität are read together, it becomes apparent that since time conditions and determines Dasein’s being, it also conditions and determines Being.
In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Heidegger says that the temporal meaning of Being is presence, to the extent that Being is understood as availableness and occurrentness.
Availableness means becoming present to Dasein. What is available presents itself to Dasein so that Dasein can encounter and experience it. That is, the available is available to the extent that it confronts Dasein. What confronts Dasein renders itself present to Dasein’s experiencing.
Heidegger says that availableness, as a mode of presence, does not only occur as hereness and nowness That is, presence is not only the present or the present tense. The future and the past are also modes of presence; the future and the past also render themselves available and present to Dasein. This presence, this availableness, Heidegger says, is the temporal meaning of Being.
After Being and Time, Heidegger’s questioning and investigating of Temporalität become less frequent and systematic. This indicates that either Heidegger completely renounces his early approach and his early questioning regarding the temporalized interpretation of Being or he merely places it into other questions and investigations by examining it differently.
For more articles on Heidegger’s philosophy, visit this webpage.