Table Of ContentThe Bounds of Self
This book provides a systematic reading of Martin Heidegger’s project
of “fundamental ontology,” which he initially presented in Being and
Time (1927) and developed further in his work on Kant. It shows our
understanding of being to be that of a small set of a priori, temporally
inflected, “categorial” forms that articulate what, how, and whether
things can be.
As selves bound to and bounded by the world within which we seek
to answer the question of how to live, we imaginatively generate these
forms in order to open ourselves up to those intra-worldly entities which
determinately instantiate them. This makes us, as selves, the source and
unifying ground of being. But this ground is hidden from us – until
we do fundamental ontology. In showing how Heidegger develops these
ideas, the author challenges key elements of the anti-Cartesian frame-
work that most readers bring to his texts, arguing that his Kantian ac-
count of being has its roots in the anti-empiricism and Augustinianism
of Descartes, and that his project relies implicitly on an essentially Car-
tesian “meditational” method of reflective self-engagement that allows
being to be brought to light. He also argues against the widespread ten-
dency to see Heidegger as presenting the basic forms of being as in any
way normative, from which he concludes, partially against Heidegger
himself, that fundamental ontology is, while profound and worth pur-
suing for its own sake, inert with respect to the question of how to live.
The Bounds of Self will be of interest to researchers and advanced
students working on Heidegger, Kant, phenomenology, and existential
philosophy.
R. Matthew Shockey is Associate Professor and Chair of the Depart-
ment of Philosophy at Indiana University – South Bend, USA
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The Bounds of Self
An Essay on Heidegger’s Being and Time
R. Matthew Shockey
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The Bounds of Self
An Essay on Heidegger’s
Being and Time
R. Matthew Shockey
First published 2021
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© 2021 R. Matthew Shockey
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Contents
Table 1: Works by Heidegger ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Undertaking To Be 1
§1 Being a Self 1
§2 Four Questions 2
§3 Heidegger’s Kantian Cartesianism 6
§4 Methodology 19
1 Being in Question 24
§1 Being Forgotten 24
§2 The Ontological Difference and the Articulated
Regionalization of Being 27
§3 The Ontological and Ontical Priority of the
Being-Question 30
§4 Being and the Self: Pursuing Ontological
“Self-Transparency” 36
§5 Conclusion 47
Table 2: The Basic Concepts of Fundamental Ontology 49
2 Outward Bounds – World and Others 50
§1 World 50
§2 World and Dasein 60
§3 Presence-at-Hand, and Some Remarks on Method 65
§4 Others 71
3 Inward Bounds I: Care as the Being of the Self 76
§1 Overview 76
§2 Being-in and Care 78
§2a Understanding and Existence 79
viii Contents
§2b Discourse and Falling 91
§2c Self-finding and Facticity 98
§3 Modes of Care 101
§4 Summary 102
4 Inward Bounds II: Temporality as the Form of Care 105
§1 Meaning and Time 105
§2 Temporality and Selfhood 108
§3 The Structure of Temporality 113
§3a The Future 116
§3b The Past 120
§3c The Present 122
§4 Summary and Discussion 124
5 Inward Bounds III: The Kantian Reinterpretation of
Temporality 129
§1 From Being and Time to Kant 129
§2 Ontological Knowledge and Imagination 131
§3 Imagination as/and Synthesis 137
3a The Synthesis of Apprehension in Intuition 137
3b The Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination 139
3c The Synthesis of (P)recognition in a Concept 142
§4 Ontological Creativity and the Nothing 147
6 Time and Being 151
§1 Introduction 151
§2 World, Others, and Self Revisited 152
§3 Regions and their Unity 159
§4 Inter-Regional Relations 166
§5 Conclusion 174
7 The End of Ontology 176
§1 The Bounds of Self 176
§2 Doing Ontology – How? 179
§3 Doing Ontology – Why? 188
§4 Conclusion: Heideggerian Critique? 196
Bibliography 201
Index 207
Table 1 Works by Heidegger
Abbreviation GA Year Title Translation
Vol. Written
EPF 17 1923– Einführung in die Trans. D.O. Dahlstrom.
24 Phänomenologische Introduction to
Forschung Phenomenological Research.
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2005
PGZ 20 1925 Prolegomena Zur Trans. T. Kisiel. Indianapolis:
Geschichte Des Indiana University Press, 1985
Zeitbegriffs
L 21 1925 Logik: Die Frage Trans. T. Sheehan. Logic: The
Nach der Wahrheit Question of Truth. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2010
SZ 2 1927 Sein und Zeit. 1993. Trans. J. Macquarrie and E.
Tubingen: Max Robinson. Being and Time. San
Niemeyer Francisco: Harper & Row, 1962
(referred to as M&R)
GP 24 1927 Grundprobleme der Trans. A. Hofstadter. The Basic
Phänomenologie Problems of Phenomenology.
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1988
PIK 25 1928 Phänomenologische Trans P. Emad and K.
Interpretation von Maly. Phenomenological
Kants Kritik Der Interpretation of Kant’s Critique
Reinen Vernunft of Pure Reason. Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press, 1997
MAL 26 1928 Metaphysische Trans. M. Heim. The Metaphysical
Anfangsgründe der Foundations of Logic.
Logik im Ausgang Bloomington: Indiana University
von Leibniz Press, 1984
KPM 3 1929 Kant und der Problem Trans. R. Taft. Kant and the
der Metaphysik Problem of Metaphysics. 4th ed.
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1990
GM 29/30 1929– Die Grundbegriffe Trans. W. McNeill and N. Walker.
30 Der Metaphysik. The Fundamental Concepts of
Welt – Endlichkeit Metaphysics: World, Finitude,
– Einsamkeit Solitude. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1995
FD 41 1935 Die Frage nach dem Trans. J. Reid and B. Crowe.
Ding. Zu Kants The Question Concerning the
Lehre von den Thing: On Kant’s Doctrine of
transzendentalen the Transcendental Principles.
Grundsätzen London: Rowman and Littlefield,
2018
WHD 8 1951–52 Was Heißt Denken? Trans. J. Glenn Gray. What Is
Called Thinking? New York:
Harper and Row, 1968
VA 7 1936– Vorträge und
53 Aufsätze.
W 9 1919– Wegmarken Ed. W. McNeill, var. trans.
58 Pathmarks. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998
GA = Gesamtausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975–.
