Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Preliminary Consideration

The intention of this course is to achieve a philosophical understanding of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and that means to learn how to do philosophy. In this brief, preliminary consideration we shall come to an understanding of the essential requirements needed for realizing this intention. There are two requirements: First, we must know what it means to understand a philosophy that has been handed down to us; secondly, we need a provisional knowledge of the ways and means of achieving such an understanding.

Regarding the first point: In the last years of his life, in the course of a conversation, Kant once said: I came with my writings a hundred years too early. A hundred years from now they will understand me better and will study and accept my books anew.¹ Are we hearing here the vanity of self-importance, or even the annoyance and resignation of not being recognized? Nothing of the sort. Both are foreign to Kant’s character. What gets articulated in this quotation is Kant’s vivid understanding of the manner in which philosophy is realized and gets worked out.

Philosophy belongs to the most original of human endeavors. In this regard Kant remarks: But these human endeavors turn in a constant circle, arriving again at a point where they have already been. Thereupon materials now lying in the dust can perhaps be processed into a magnificent structure.² It is precisely these original human endeavors that have their constancy in never losing their questionable character and in thus returning to the same point and finding there their sole source of energy. The constancy of these endeavors does not consist in the continued regularity of advancing, in the sense of a so-called progress. Progress exists only in the realm of what is ultimately unimportant for human existence. Philosophy does not evolve in the sense of progress. Rather, philosophy is an attempt at developing and clarifying the same few problems; philosophy is the independent, free, and thoroughgoing struggle of human existence with the darkness that can break out at any time in that existence. And every clarification opens new abysses. Thus the stagnation and decline of philosophy do not mean not-going-forward-anymore; rather they point to having forgotten the center. Therefore every philosophical renewal is an awakening in returning to the same point.

Let us learn from Kant himself about the issue of how to understand philosophy properly:

No one attempts to establish a science unless he has an idea upon which to base it. But in the working out of the science, the schema, nay even the definition which he first gives to the science, is very seldom adequate to his idea. For this idea lies within reason, like a germ in which the parts are hidden, undeveloped, and barely recognizable, even under microscopic observation. Consequently, since sciences are devised from the point of view of a certain universal interest, we must not explain and determine them according to the description which their founder gives of them, but in conformity with the idea which, out of the natural unity of the parts that we have assembled, we find to be grounding in reason itself. For we shall then find that its founder and often even his most recent successors, are groping around for an idea which they have never succeeded in making clear to themselves; and consequently, they have not been able to determine the proper content, articulation (systematic unity), and limits of the science.³

Applied to Kant himself, this means that we are not supposed to hold onto the merely literal description which he, as the founder of transcendental philosophy, gives of this philosophy. Rather, we must understand this idea—i.e., the determinant parts in their entirety—from out of that which grounds the idea. We must return to the factual ground, behind what is rendered visible by the first description. Thus, in grasping a philosophy which is handed down to us, we must comport ourselves in a manner which Kant emphasizes with regard to Plato’s doctrine of ideas:

I need only remark that it is by no means unusual, upon comparing the thoughts which an author has expressed with regard to his subject—whether in ordinary conversation or in writing—to find that we understand him better than he understood himself, in that he has not sufficiently determined his concept and therefore has sometimes spoken, or even thought, in opposition to his own intention.⁴

According to this, then, to understand Kant properly means to understand him better than he understood himself. This presupposes that in our interpretation we do not fall victim to the blunders for which Kant once blamed the historians of philosophy, when he said: "Some historians of philosophy cannot see beyond the etymologies of what ancient philosophers have said to what they wanted to say."⁵ Accordingly, to understand properly means to concentrate on what Kant wanted to say—that is, not to stop at his descriptions, but to go back to the foundations of what he meant.

Thus our intention and task, in properly understanding Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, necessarily includes the claim to understand Kant better than he understood himself. Is this not being presumptuous, putting down the earlier by what comes later and has presumably advanced? But we know already that there is no advancing here, in the sense of external progress. It makes no sense to say that Plato, Aristotle, or Kant is surpassed. There is no presumption or disdain in our intention to understand an author better, in that this intention expresses nothing other than our appreciation of what wants to be understood better. For when we comprehend properly what understanding better means, we realize from the first that such understanding is possible and meaningful only where something intelligible is already there which contains in itself the possibility of being traced back to its foundations. In saying that there is something that we intend to understand better, we are saying that it contains within it a content in which we ourselves can grow. By contrast, everything which drifts on the surface and, on the basis of its trivial and vacuous character, gives no clue to an interpretation, can also not be understood better. To be able to be understood better and to be worth being better understood is a privilege and precisely not an indication of something of inferior quality.

Every semblance of presumption disappears completely when we comprehend that even those who understand better are in need of a new interpretation, just when they understand appropriately and hit upon new foundations. Thus there is no reason to take oneself as absolute in the bad sense. There is a significant darkness in every philosophical endeavor, and even the most radical of these endeavors remains finite. Such an endeavor sees itself as absolute in the genuine sense only when it comprehends itself as finite.

Understanding appropriately as understanding better is no mere rejection of what is understood, but rather is giving it validity. A philosophy truly has validity when its own power is released and the possibility is provided for it to deliver a shock and to make a difference. This happens only when the philosophy in question enters the possibility of saying what that philosophy wanted to say. To let Kant speak in this manner then just means precisely to come to grips with him. Understanding better expresses the necessity of the philosophical struggle that goes on within every real interpretation. We need to see that merely narrating and describing what is in a text does not guarantee anything like a philosophical understanding. Of course, simply being prepared for coming to grips [with Kant], while certainly necessary, is not a sufficient condition for interpretation. A second thing is needed: the ways and means for achieving such a better understanding.

It is of little use to deal in any detail with the method of interpretation before the object of the interpretation is sufficiently known. We will limit ourselves to a few remarks. Our interpretation concerns that work of Kant which lies at the center of his philosophical labor. Because of the Critique of Pure Reason all preceding philosophy, including ancient philosophy, is put in a new light; and for the period that comes after, this Critique gives rise to a new philosophical problematic.

In order to see clearly what Kant wanted to say, we must familiarize ourselves with the text, by knowing the structure of the whole work, the inner connection among the individual parts, the interpenetration of the series of proofs—knowing the concepts and the principles. It seems easy simply to state what is there in the text. However, even if we thoroughly appropriate the concepts, the question, and the conditions—by clarifying them or by determining their origin from out of the tradition and their transformation in Kant—even then we do not yet grasp what is in the text. In order to go that far, we must be able to see what Kant saw, as he determined the problems, came up with a solution, and put it into the form of the work that we now have before us as the Critique of Pure Reason. It is of no use to repeat Kantian concepts and statements or to reformulate them. We must get so far that we speak these concepts and statements with Kant, from within and out of the same perspective.

Thus, to come to know what Kant means demands that we bring to life an understanding of philosophical problems in general. However, the introduction of philosophical problems will not precede the interpretation. Rather, through the act of interpretation we shall grow into the factual understanding of the philosophical problematic. It will then become clear that and how Kant took an essential step in the direction of a fundamental elucidation of the concept and method of philosophy.

But penetration into philosophical knowledge reveals at the same time the basic difference between philosophy and every science. However, the difference simultaneously makes visible how the sciences and philosophy originally belong together. In interpreting the Critique of Pure Reason, we do not merely take note of Kant’s opinions and statements. We should grasp the main problems of his philosophical work, which means that we should learn how to do philosophy. Accordingly, several intentions come together in our lecture course: an examination of the Critique of Pure Reason, an introduction into the basic problems of philosophy, and an exercise in interpretation and in the actual philosophical appropriation of philosophical investigations.

When the inherent structure of the Critique of Pure Reason calls for it, we shall on occasion deal with Kant himself, with his philosophical and scientific development, with his relation to the tradition and to what came after him. Thus these historical considerations shall also support and complete the interpretation. To this end we must also consider other writings of Kant. However, the first and foremost goal is to understand philosophically the unified whole of the Critique of Pure Reason.

The designation of this interpretation as phenomenological is meant initially to indicate only that coming to grips with Kant takes place directly within the context of the current and living philosophical problematic. What phenomenology is all about should be demonstrated in the course of the interpretation itself.

Before we begin with the actual interpretation, we need to mention briefly the most important resources: editions of Kant’s works, single editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, and some secondary literature.

Regarding editions of Kant’s works:

I. The complete critical edition of Kant’s works has been undertaken by the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin, following W. Dilthey’s recommendation. Collected works of Kant have been estimated to comprise twenty-one volumes, of which seventeen have already appeared. Kant’s writings are in volumes 1–9, his letters in volumes 10–12, his handwritten literary remains in volumes 13–19, and addenda and lectures in volumes 20–21. Volume 3 contains the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781); volume 4 contains the second edition (1787) to the extent that the second edition has alterations (e.g., in the chapter on Paralogism).

II. The edition of E. Cassirer of Kant’s works (1912ff.) has already been completed and contains Kant’s most important works: Volumes 1–8 contain Kant’s writings; volumes 9–10, the letters; and volume 3, the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason.

III. The edition of Kant’s works published by Meiner (1904ff.)

Older editions are as follows: by G. Hartenstein in ten volumes (1838–1839), by Rosenkranz and Schubert in twelve volumes (1838–1842), and by Hartenstein in eight volumes (1867–1869).

Editions of the Critique of Pure Reason are as follows: by Benno Erdmann (of the second edition) (1878), with its fifth edition in 1900; by Adickes (1889), with footnotes and an introduction; by Karl Vorländer (1899 and later), of the second edition, with the text of the first edition in an appendix—and a good introduction and a subject and name index; the edition from Meiner, with the second edition and alterations in an appendix. The latest edition by R. Schmidt (1926) has both editions side by side and is therefore very useful; the edition by Kehrbach (published by Reclam) has the first edition, with alterations of the second edition in the appendix.

Biographical information is as follows: The presentation and characterization of Kant’s life and his contemporaries by Borowski, by Jachmann, and by Wasianski (all appearing in 1804); by Vorländer, Immanuel Kant: Der Mann und das Werk, 2 volumes (1924).

Here is some important secondary literature:

H. Cohen’s Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (1871, 1925⁴), his first scholarly work and basically epistemology; A. Riehl’s Der philosophische Kritizismus (1908²); B. Erdmann’s Kants Kritizismus in der 1. und 2. Auflage der Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1878); H. Vaihinger’s Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (vol. 1, 1888; vol. 2, 1892). This commentary was intended to have five volumes and now covers the preface to the first edition, the introductions from both the first and second editions, and the Transcendental Aesthetic.

For further information, consult volume 3 of Überweg’s history of philosophy. Specific secondary literature on important investigations will be mentioned in each case in the appropriate places. It is to be noted in the end, however, that we are not concerned with literature about the text, but rather with the text itself.

1. Vamhagen von Ense, Tagebücher, I, 46.

2. Vorländer (ed.), Kants Antwort an Garve, Prolegomena, p. 194.

3. CPR, B 862, A 834.

4. Ibid., B 370, A 314.

5. Kants Streitschaft gegen Eberhard, 1790 (Cassirer, VI, 71).

Introduction

The Critique of Pure Reason as Laying the Foundation for Metaphysics as Science

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason appeared in 1781, after a period of silence that lasted more than ten years. At the time Kant was fifty-six years old. To begin with, his contemporaries were completely baffled about this work; for it went far beyond the established philosophical literature in terms of the depth of its questioning, the rigor of its conceptual formation, the novelty of its language, and the many-layered layout of its problematic. Although the essential intentions of this work were not grasped at the time, it caused some excitement and soon gave rise to writings both pro and con. In order to protect himself against misunderstandings, in order to ward off inappropriate attacks, but above all in order to enable better access to the Critique, in 1783 Kant wrote the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science. But this treatise, although it looks back to the major work and is written clearly and instructively, does not present the ingenious inquiry of Kant in its originality. Kant remained in a cycle of incomparable productivity and clarity about his problems, even after the publication of the Critique; this benefited the revision of the Critique that soon became necessary. The second edition of the Critique appeared in 1787, revised here and there and with a new preface and a more extensive introduction. We shall base our interpretation on both of these editions. The second edition does not change anything in the general structure of the work, but attempts to rework the central doctrines and to sharpen the lines of argument.

When we begin to familiarize ourselves with the texts, the first things that we come across are the prefaces and introductions of both editions, A and B. But it is characteristic of genuine prefaces and introductions that they are written after the work has been completed and, in retrospect, provide an anticipatory view of the work. These prefaces and introductions will really be understood only from out of the understanding of the work as a whole. Accordingly, our interpretation will not dwell on the preface and introduction. Rather, we will begin immediately with the actual thematic part. Of course, we cannot avoid giving a general and preparatory characterization of the central problematic of the Critique of Pure Reason if we wish to avoid completely fumbling around in the dark in the initial stage of interpretation. Thus, I shall try to offer a rather free presentation of the basic problematic of the Critique, a presentation that sets aside an actual exegesis of, even as it is partly based upon, the preface and the introduction. This presentation will be necessarily provisional, not yet able to move along with rigorous concepts.

We ask: What does a critique of pure reason mean? We can answer this question only if we know what the work with this title is supposed to accomplish. If this is the central work of Kant’s philosophical labor, then it must have grown out of Kant’s most original endeavors in philosophy. We can briefly formulate Kant’s basic convictions on the nature of philosophy by saying: Philosophy is metaphysics. The Critique of Pure Reason is nothing but laying the foundation for metaphysics as science and thus laying the foundation for pure philosophy as such. Critique of pure reason means laying the foundation for metaphysics as science.

We ask: What does metaphysics mean? What does it mean, generally, to lay the foundation for a science? Why is laying the foundation for science a critique of pure reason? By responding to these questions, we obtain an initial summary of the problematic of the Critique of Pure Reason. But if an interpretation is a matter of understanding better, a philosophical discussion, then we have already determined the problematic around which the struggle will take place: metaphysics, its being, its ground, and its form as science. Herein at the same time lies the question: To what extent does metaphysics constitute the center of philosophy and in what form can it be the center?

§1. The Traditional Concept of Metaphysics

We begin our discussion concerning the question of what metaphysics is by elucidating how the meaning of the word metaphysics changed from referring to the technical production of a book to designating the central science of philosophy.

Literally the word metaphysics—μετὰ τὰ ϕυσικά—means that which comes after that which deals with ϕύσις or nature, the world in general, and being. In the last century before Christ the writings of Aristotle were collected and arranged anew and published as philosophy in its entirety, just as the teaching of Stoicism constitutes a system divided into logic, physics, and ethics. On this occasion among the Aristotelian corpus a treatise was found with the title Physics, ϕυσικὴ ἀκρόασις. This treatise deals with the world as a whole (κόσμος) and with the basic determining feature of the world, i.e., motion. In addition other treatises were found which had been brought together but not given a title and in a certain sense dealt with the same subject matter as the treatise entitled Physics. In arranging the order of the writings, it was easy to put these untitled essays after the treatise entitled Physics and, from the point of view of a technical arrangement, simply to take these treatises as a collection of essays which in the sequence of writings come after the physics, i.e., μετὰ τὰ ϕυσικά.

This technical title soon took on a meaning which was meant to characterize the content of the treatises which followed the Physics. People saw that these treatises dealt with the problem of the world as a whole and in a comprehensive sense, insofar as, on the one hand, these essays inquire more decisively into the ultimate ground of all beings, an inquiry which Aristotle designates as theology. On the other hand, there were essays which took as object of inquiry the totality of beings as such insofar as they are beings; and this discipline, which inquires into beings as beings and questions the meaning of the being of beings, was called πρώτη ϕιλοσοϕία, i.e., first philosophy. The discipline of theology was taken together with the discipline of first philosophy, and together they were differentiated from physics. At first sight both disciplines, theology and first philosophy, have the peculiar and common characteristic of going beyond experienceable beings, in that they take up first the issue of the world as a whole and its ground, and then the issue of the being of beings, which belongs to every being in being a being, as its constitution.

What is stated here about beings and the world in some sense transcends the physical, i.e., what is extant and experienceable, what is sensible, the mundus sensibilis. The essays transcend unto something which lies beyond physics; and the meaning of the μετά in the technical title of metaphysics gets transformed. It no longer means post—following sequentially—but means trans: transcending what is considered in physics and its manner of treating the problematic. Metaphysics is thus the science of the super-sensible.

This is the sense in which Kant says:

The old name for this science provides an indication of the kind of knowledge to which the intention of this knowledge is directed. One would like to move beyond all the objects of possible experience (trans physicam) with the help of this knowledge, in order, wherever possible, to get to know that which absolutely cannot be the object of this knowledge.¹

Likewise Kant states in his lecture on metaphysics:

As far as the name metaphysics is concerned, one must not assume that this title originates accidentally because it fits exactly with the science. {Kant is suggesting that the title of metaphysics is formulated in view of the content of the treatise which was entitled Metaphysics.} For, since ϕυσις means nature and since we cannot arrive at the concepts of nature other than through experience, therefore that science which follows nature is called ‘metaphysics’ (from μετα, trans, and physica. This is a science which, as it were, lies outside and beyond the realm of physics.² {Cf. Kowalewski, Die philosophischen Hauptvorlesungen Kants (1924), p. 552; see also Pölitz and Arnoldt.}

Metaphysics is the science of supersensible beings which are not accessible to experience. What is not accessible to experience includes: the world as totality (since the whole in its wholeness is not experienceable); the ground of the world, called God; then those beings within the world which are central for all questioning, i.e., humans and particularly that in them which is not experienceable: what lies beyond death, the immortality of the soul; the soul as such and its freedom. Thus metaphysics deals with the supersensible: God, the totality of the world, and the soul.

These objects correspond to three definite disciplines of metaphysics. Theology deals with God—as philosophical theology, i.e., from out of reason and not out of revelation: theologia rationalis or naturalis. Rational cosmology, cosmologia rationalis, deals with the κόσμος or the totality of the world. And rational psychology or psychologia rationalis deals with the soul. As disciplines of metaphysics, these are not experiential sciences, but sciences of reason—rational sciences.

We already heard that in the collection of Aristotelian treatises called μετὰ τὰ ϕυσικά there were essays which dealt with beings as beings, with ὄν ἧ ὄν or ens inquantum ens. They deal with being in general, which inheres in every being, whether it be God, a natural object, or something psychic. The metaphysical discipline which deals with being in general, with ens in communi, is called general metaphysics or metaphysica generalis. A distinction is made between this and the disciplines that we mentioned—rational theology, rational cosmology, and rational psychology—which make up metaphysica specialis. Special metaphysics and thus the entirety of metaphysics has its center in rational theology.

This concept of metaphysics and its divisions were developed in the Middle Ages and particularly in the late Scholasticism in Spain. It was passed on to modern philosophy in this systematization and remained crucial for Kant, although he reworked this conception in a major way. Kant held his lectures on metaphysics in accord with the compendium of Baumgarten, a student of Wolff. Baumgarten defines metaphysics as follows: "Metaphysica est scientia prima cognitionis humanae principia continens"³ [Metaphysics is the science which contains the first principles of what is grasped by human knowledge]. Metaphysics is a science of the principles of beings, not the principles of knowledge: "Ad metaphysicam referuntur ontologia, cosmologia, psychologia, et theologia naturalis⁴ [To metaphysics belong ontology, cosmology, psychology, and natural theology"].

What is essential about this conception of metaphysics is that its object is the totality of beings in general and thus, in terms of the main realms of beings, God, the world, and human beings. Metaphysics deals with supersensible beings—ὄν—and metaphysics originates as an ontic science. This applies also to traditional metaphysica generalis, which deals with beings as such and, at least since Descartes, is called ontology. This traditional ontology, too, is an ontic science which considers beings in general and, in doing so, naturally comes across the determinations of the being of beings. Thus there were basic obscurities in this concept of metaphysica generalis and of ontology—obscurities which in fact have been there since the time of Plato and Aristotle, including Kant. Kant attempts for the first time to clarify the concept of ontology and so to conceive anew this concept of metaphysics. However, in spite of all of Kant’s attempts to reshape the concept of metaphysics, still for Kant—as will be shown—genuine metaphysics remains an ontic science of supersensible beings. For him the supersensible is the final goal of metaphysics⁵—supersensible in us, above us, and after us, namely: freedom, God, and immortality.

We will have to develop Kant’s concept of metaphysics more closely at that point where we will understand how he carries out the project of laying the foundation of metaphysics. To begin with, let us stay with the very general definition of metaphysics which he on one occasion presents in Über die Fortschritte der Metaphysik. There he says that metaphysics is the science which enables us by means of reason to proceed from the knowledge of the sensible to that of the supersensible.⁶ There are two essential aspects to this definition. First, metaphysical knowledge is not a knowledge gained from experience but one gained through reason. Secondly, metaphysical knowledge moves beyond the sensible, as Kant puts it, toward the supersensible—or to put it more carefully: moves toward what is not-sensible. For the theme of Kantian metaphysics is not only the supersensible, because ontology deals also with that which lies beyond the sensible which is nothing supersensible. The supersensible (beings) constitutes only one region of what belongs to what is not-sensible.

What Kant encountered as metaphysics, and wherein he operated for a long time, is a science which would determine the beings to which the mere concepts of reason—such as God and soul—refer by way of a logical analysis of these concepts on the basis of certain principles, like the principle of contradiction. We can explain Kant by asking: Does this theoretically metaphysical knowledge have a foundation? Can the concepts and propositions of this knowledge of the supersensible be proven by virtue of the supersensible itself? Can this knowledge be confirmed by a direct intuitive experience of these beings? If not, then such propositions cannot be refuted by any experience. Because neither a confirmation nor refutation by experience is possible and because the sole principle of truth is sought in the absence of contradiction among propositions, i.e., in their formal correctness, the metaphysicians continued at all times to anticipate supposedly enthusiastic insights.⁷ Metaphysics neglected the inquiry concerning the possibility of such supersensible knowledge; metaphysics was without a critique, i.e., was dogmatic. Hence Kant calls the traditional metaphysics dogmatic metaphysics, or more precisely: theoretical-dogmatic metaphysics. He calls metaphysics theoretical because it makes the crossing over to the supersensible via mere reflection, or θεωρία.

Kant’s attempt to lay the foundation of metaphysics as science had to come to terms with this traditional theoretical-dogmatic metaphysics. Kant saw clearly that this metaphysics is still a battle-ground … quite well suited for those who desire to exercise themselves in mock combat and its procedure … has been a merely random groping … among mere concepts.⁸ In contrast to this, we must investigate by what measure and from where reason may venture to pass beyond the objects of experience to those objects which are not of experience.⁹ Kant does not deny the possibility of metaphysics, but holds on to traditional metaphysics in its ultimate goal as genuine metaphysics. The only question is: Whither and how are we to attempt this crossing over to the supersensible?

How does Kant sketch out his justification of a genuine metaphysics? How does he accomplish the project of laying the foundation of metaphysics as science? In order to understand this, we must first come to an understanding of the second question¹⁰—namely, what does laying the foundation of a science mean at all? In order to gain clarity about this question, we would like to attempt to carry on an independent phenomenological observation, i.e., one not primarily geared to Kant. To this end we shall respond to two specific questions: What does science mean generally? And what do we mean by laying the foundation of science? The following phenomenological deliberations are of fundamental importance for grasping the interpretation of the Critique as well as for grasping this interpretation itself, i.e., for grasping philosophy as such. These deliberations concern problems which seem trivial but which philosophy has by no means yet thoroughly penetrated.

§2. General Meaning of Laying the Foundation of a Science

a) Phenomenological Interpretation of Science’s Way of Being

In the following we shall characterize, first in only a general way, the idea of science as such; and then we shall determine more precisely what is needed for a science to arise at all, i.e., for a science as such to ground itself. This should make visible the supporting ground of a science and accordingly should indicate where the laying of the foundation of a science must begin. (For an exposition of the logical and phenomenological-existential concept of science, cf. the lecture given in Tübingen on March 9, 1927, under the title Phenomenology and Theology.)

α) The Existential Concept of Science. Knowledge as a Revealing Comportment to Beings, the Primary Revealing in the Practical-Technical Realm, and the Prescientific Understanding of the Being of Beings

We begin our observation with a preliminary designation of science as a kind of knowing. But we do not mean knowing in the sense of the known, but rather as a knowing comportment. This comportment is not a so-called psychic process in the interior of a so-called soul. Rather, as human comportment it is a definite, possible way for humans to be. To inhere in this way of being and of knowing means to have a relationship with beings that are knowable or known, such as nature, history, space or time. This way of being relates to beings themselves; in fact, it is a comportment which reveals the being to which it is related.

The revealing comportment toward beings which occasionally surrounds human Dasein is a free possibility of this Dasein. Generally we give the name existence to the way of being which is peculiar to human Dasein and to which moreover knowing belongs as a free possibility. Humans exist, whereas things in nature are extant. Accordingly we conceive knowing as a free possibility of human existence.

In attempting to explicate knowing, and particularly science as a possibility of the existence of Dasein, we are inquiring into the existential concept of science. What is science when it is taken as the possibility of existence of human Dasein? If we wanted to respond to this question at all satisfactorily, then we would first have to go back to a general, essential determination of human Dasein itself, i.e., we must return to its essential constitution. We cannot do that here. Instead we will consider only two essential determinants which belong to the existence of Dasein: being-in-the-world and freedom. These are sufficient for a preliminary designation of the essence of science.

Human Dasein is a being which has a world; or, to put it differently, the mode of being of Dasein, existence, is essentially determined by being-in-the-world. World is that particular whole toward which we comport ourselves at all times. The personal relation of one existence to another is also not a free floating cognitive relation of an I-self to a thou-self, as if they were isolated souls; but rather each is a factical self in a world, and the being of the self is essentially determined by its comportment to this world.

By contrast, a material thing—a rock or any item for use, like a chair—has no world; its mode of being is devoid of any comportment toward a world. This kind of being is merely extant. What is extant is of course one of those beings toward which we can comport ourselves. This being may be extant within our world, it may belong to what we come across in the world and be an innerworldly being; but it does not have to be that way. When we say about a being that it is innerworldly—like nature, for example—this being still does not have the mode of being which comports itself toward a world; it does not have the mode of being of being-in-the-world. It has the mode of being of extantness, to which additionally the determination of innerworldliness can accrue when a Dasein exists which lets that being be encountered as innerworldly in Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Physical nature can only occur as innerworldly when world, i.e., Dasein, exists. This is not to say that nature cannot be in its own way, without occurring within a world, without the existence of a human Dasein and thus without world. It is only because nature is by itself extant that it can also encounter Dasein within a world.

For an initial orientation regarding the structure of Dasein and being-in-the-world, let us keep in mind the explicit difference between human beings and rocks. Rocks have no world; humans are affected by a world toward which they comport themselves. With this rough differentiation we are still far from a genuine philosophical understanding. In the course of interpretation of the Critique, we shall see how the very basic difficulties of the Kantian problematic are grounded in Kant’s failure to recognize the phenomenon of world and to clarify the concept of the world—something that neither he nor his successors did.

We deliberately overlooked plants and animals in our preliminary characterization of being-in-the-world. Animals are not extant like rocks, but they also do not exist in the manner of comporting themselves to a world. Nevertheless in plants and animals we find a kind of orientation toward other beings which in a certain way surround them. As distinguished from the extantness of material things and from the existence of humans, we call the mode of being of plants and animals: life. To be sure, we speak of the animal’s environment, but the question here is what world means and whether, strictly speaking, we can talk about world here. For what we mean by world is intrinsically connected to a second essential determination of Dasein which we want briefly to mention along with being-in-the-world.

Human Dasein which has a world is a being who is concerned with its own existence, indeed in such a way so as to choose itself or give itself over to choice. The existence which always makes up our being—though not the only determinant—is a matter of our freedom; and only a being which can be resolved and has resolved itself in such and such a way can have a world. World and freedom as basic determinations of human existence are most closely related.

For our purposes of interpreting the essence of science from out of the mode of being of Dasein (existence), these determinations of Dasein (being-in-the-world and freedom) are sufficient.

It is not difficult to arrive at further determinations from the one mentioned in the first place. Dasein exists: It is in a world within which it encounters beings and to which the existing Dasein comports itself. However, these innerworldly beings toward which Dasein comports itself are revealed in, through, and for this comportment. But at the same time the comporting Dasein is also revealed to itself; the one who exists, Dasein, is manifest to itself, without being the object of a penetrating self-observation.

However, the comportment toward innerworldly beings is not first and foremost a knowing comportment, even in the sense of a scientific examination of beings. The predominant comportment whereby we generally discover innerworldly beings is application, employment of things for use, dealing with tools of transportation, tools for sewing, tools for writing, tools for working—tools in the broadest sense. We get to know tools primarily by dealing with them. It is not as if we have a prior knowledge of these things, in order then to use them. Rather it is the other way around: Employment as such is the manner in which we get to know these things primarily and appropriately, i.e., a primary and proper way of uncovering innerworldly beings. Likewise we do not reveal nature in its might and power by reflecting on it, but by struggling against it and by protecting ourselves from it and by dominating it. Thus the myths of nature contain a history of this struggle; that is, they are interpretations of an original comportment toward nature. Similarly we do not discover the daily circumstances and accidents of happenings within our world of action by merely gaping at the world; but rather it is by seizing and examining opportunities that we primarily learn of inconveniences, obstacles, dispositions, and feelings. The daily dealings with innerworldly beings is the primary—and for many the only—manner of discovering the world. This dealing with innerworldly beings—in terms of application, employment, accomplishment, production, and so on—is a comportment to tools and nexuses of tools, like traffic regulations in a city and the like. We make use of them in a self-evident manner.

But it is in dealing with things that we understand, from the very outset, what something like a tool or things for use generally mean. We do not develop this understanding only in the course of use. On the contrary, we must already understand ahead of time something like tool and tool-character, in order to set about using a certain tool. This understanding of what a tool means opens the horizon for us in advance so that, in using a specific tool, we can comport ourselves toward it. What we learn is not an understanding of what being a tool is in general, but rather we can only learn the use of a specific tool as we anticipate and ask for it. In the same way we always already understand in advance what the power of nature means and only in the light of this advance-understanding of nature’s power can a specific force of nature overwhelm us.

In a certain way we understand in advance the tool-character as well as the power of the forces of nature. We understand such things—although at first and to begin with we do not pay attention to such understanding and do not even know that we understand these sorts of things. We are solely occupied with the specific way in which tools interconnect and are stupefied by specific forces. This prior understanding of the tool-character and of power, without which we could never use a specific tool and could never be taken aback by a specific force of nature, is as such hidden from us. And not only is this understanding hidden from us, although we constantly exist in it; but that which we understand is concealed, too: Things like tool-character and power are not specifically comprehended in this understanding; nor are they explicitly made an object of reflection, much less the theme of a conceptual knowledge. This understanding of the tool-character and of power is hidden from us, is not made thematic, remains unobjectified, and is preconceptual.

But what is it which is in some way manifest to us in our understanding of the tool-character and of the power of nature? Dealing with a tool or with nature is a comportment toward beings; and what is to some extent already accessible to us in the aforementioned understanding in question is nothing but the manner and constitution of the being of beings. We can comport ourselves toward a being, e.g., what is extant as such, only if we understand in advance what extantness means. Therefore, we must state generally and fundamentally that with the understanding of the tool-character, which from the beginning elucidates all our dealing with tools, it becomes clear that all comportment toward beings carries within it an understanding of the manner and constitution of the being of the beings in question.

We understand something like the being of beings, but we neither grasp nor know that we understand this being in a preconceptual way or even that it is this understanding of being that primarily