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Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy
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Heidegger's Kantian idealism revisited
William Blattner
a
a
Georgetown University
b
Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 200571133, USA E-
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Published online: 06 Oct 2011.
To cite this article: William Blattner (2004): Heidegger's Kantian idealism revisited, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal
of Philosophy, 47:4, 321-337
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Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited
William Blattner
Georgetown University
I offer a revised interpretation of Heideggers ontological idealism his thesis that
being, but not entities, depends on Dasein as well as its relationship to Kants
transcendental idealism. I build from my earlier efforts on this topic by modifying
them and defending my basic line of interpretation against criticisms advanced by
Cerbone, Philipse, and Carman. In essence, my reading of Heidegger goes like this:
what it means to say that being depends on Dasein is that the criteria and standards
that determine what it is to be, and hence whether an item (or anything at all) is, are
conceptually interwoven with, and hence conceptually dependent upon, a structure
that could not obtain without Dasein (namely, time). For this reason, to ask whether
entities (e.g., nature) would exist, even if we (Dasein) did not, is either to ask an
empirical question with an obvious negative answer (viz., According to our best
current theories, does everything depend causally upon us?), or to ask a meaningless
question with no answer (viz., If we suspend or discount the standards and criteria
that determine whether anything is, does anything exist?). In short, Heidegger is an
empirical realist, but neither a transcendental idealist nor realist.
I
Does nature depend upon our understanding of it? Could nature be, even if we
were not? Whereas Immanuel Kants predecessors in the early modern period
answered this question directly, arguing either that nature does depend on us
(Berkeley, idealism) or that it does not (Locke, realism), Kant suggested that
the question itself is ambiguous.
It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of
extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we
can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation
of space stands for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things only
in so far as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility. Our exposition
therefore establishes the reality, that is, the objective validity, of space in respect of
whatever can be presented to us outwardly as object, but also at the same time the
ideality of space in respect of things when they are considered in themselves through
reason, that is, without regard to the constitution of our sensibility.
1
The question can be asked from one of two standpoints, the human, more
often called empirical, standpoint or the transcendental standpoint, and the
very meaning of the question itself depends upon which standpoint one
occupies, when one asks it. Kant characterizes the two standpoints in terms of
whether the subjective constitution of the senses is granted or removed.
2
If we grant the subjective constitution of the senses, then nature is objective.
Inquiry, 47, 321337
DOI 10.1080/00201740410004160 # 2004 Taylor & Francis
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But if we remove the subjective constitution of our senses, nature
vanishes. From the empirical standpoint, which takes the subjective
constitution of the senses for granted, we can distinguish between
objectivities and illusions, and nature is the very paradigm of an objectivity.
3
From the transcendental standpoint, which removes or thinks away the
subjective constitution of the senses, we can distinguish between appear-
ances and things in themselves, and nature here falls into the category of
appearance. Nature is thus empirically real and transcendentally ideal.
Martin Heidegger adopts a prima facie similar position in Being and Time.
Of course, only as long as Dasein is, that is, the ontical possibility of the
understanding of being is, is there being. If Dasein does not exist, then
independence is not either, nor is the in itself. Such a thing is then neither
understandable nor not understandable. Then also intraworldly entities neither are
discoverable, nor can they lie in hiddenness. Then it can be said neither that entities
are, nor that they are not. Nevertheless, it can now be said as long as the
understanding of being, and thereby the understanding of occurrentness are that then
entities will continue to be.
4
To the question whether entities will continue to be, even if we (Dasein) cease
to exist, we may develop two different answers, depending upon whether we
are asking the question now or then. If we ask the question now, while
we do exist, the answer is that entities will continue to exist. But if we ask the
question then, when we no longer exist, the question has no answer.
Whereas Kant distinguishes the empirical and transcendental standpoints in
terms of whether the subjective constitution of the senses is granted or
removed, Heidegger distinguishes his now and then in terms of whether
our understanding of being exists. In both cases the distinction between the
two standpoints is stated in terms of whether a certain set of conditions on
representation or understanding (the subjective constitution of sensibility or
the understanding of being) are granted or removed, acknowledged or
ignored. This is to say that there is a rough analogy between Kants two
standpoints and Heideggers.
5
Heidegger does not, however, adopt Kants transcendental idealism.
Whereas Kant argues that if the subjective constitution of the senses in
general is not granted, then nature cannot exist, Heidegger argues that nature
neither does nor does not exist, if the understanding of being is not granted.
This implies that for Heidegger nature is neither appearance nor thing in
itself, because it neither does nor does not exist in the absence of subjective
conditions. Indeed, Heidegger draws this anti-transcendental-idealist conclu-
sion explicitly in his 1928 lectures on Kant, where he asserts that the very
concept of the thing in itself is bankrupt:
The concept of the thing in itself falls along with the presupposition of an absolute
intuition that produces things in the rst place, that is, along with the presupposition of
322 William Blattner
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the conception of being in the sense of being occurrent by having been produced,
which derives from ancient ontology.
6
That is, Heidegger attributes the concept of the thing in itself to residual
elements of pre-Critical metaphysics in Kants thinking, elements that should
be expunged in a purication of Kants remodeling of modern philosophy.
In what follows I want to explore the relationship between Kants and
Heideggers attitudes toward idealism and realism. In doing so, I will be
restating and modifying somewhat earlier versions of my interpretation of the
relationship.
7
Along the way I will respond to criticisms of my earlier views
advanced by David Cerbone, Herman Philipse, and Taylor Carman.
8
Responding to these criticisms will allow me to clarify and rene my earlier
position.
II
What are Kants two standpoints, the empirical and the transcendental? (For
technical reasons to be developed below, I will henceforth call Kants
transcendental standpoint the transempirical standpoint.) In order to explain
these standpoints and how they differ, we must rst explore the notion of
transcendental conditions in terms of which they are framed. Kants decisive
insight in The Critique of Pure Reason is that the human power of
representation is governed by a set of a priori conditions. Kant analyzes these
conditions into two sets, conditions governing sensibility (or our capacity to
be affected by objects passively, in sensation and introspection) and
conditions governing conceptualization or the understanding. Sensibility is
governed by space and time, which is to say that we are only able to
experience objects sensibly as spatial and temporal. (Space is a condition on
our power to sense objects as distinct from us, i.e., outwardly, whereas time
is a condition on our power to sense any objects whatsoever, i.e., both
outwardly and inwardly.) Understanding is governed by the twelve
categories of the pure understanding, which together make up a conception
of objectivity.
9
Among the twelve categories, tradition has focused most
closely on those of substantiality and causality. According to Kant, any object
must be represented either as a substance (an unchanging substrate of change)
or as a property (a changing state of an unchanging substrate), and all changes
in the eld of experience must conform to universal laws of necessary change
in time (causal laws). The net result of all these conditions is a conception of
objectivity, according to which objects are causally interacting substances in
space and/or time.
Once we have identied these conditions on representability, we can ask
whether things, when conceived in accordance with these conditions, depend
on the human mind. The answer is, of course, that mostly they do not. Some
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 323
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states do depend on the mind: psychological states do. But ordinary spatio-
temporal objects do not. Right now, as I look out of the window of my study, I
see a house nch at my bird feeder. Neither the feeder nor the nch depends
on me or my mind; in fact, neither depends on the existence of human beings
at all. All human beings could simultaneously cease to exist right now, and
the nch and the feeder would persist. In order to assert in this way the
independence of the nch and feeder from my mind, I have to assume a set of
causal facts about the world: although my psychological states are sustained
in existence by the operation of my mind, and therefore depend upon my
mind, neither the nch nor the feeder are thus sustained. They are causally
independent of me, indeed, of us. We thus see that if we take for granted our
basic conception of objectivity, the world is mostly independent of us.
Kants identication of these a priori conditions on representability also
opens up the possibility that we can ask howthings are, independently of the a
priori conditions. That is, if we do not take our conception of objectivity for
granted, howis it with the world? Kants transcendental idealism declares that
if we suspend the conditions on representation, the objects represented in our
ordinary and scientic understanding of the world cannot exist. That is, these
objects exist, only as long or in so far as the a priori conditions are granted. If
those conditions are removed in some way, then the objects are too.
What exactly do we have in mind in talking about suspending or
removing the subjective conditions on representation? We may, for the sake
of simplicity, focus our attention down to a single subjective condition, time.
According to Kant, time is a condition on sensibility that governs both the
outer intuition of objects experienced as distinct from us and the inner
intuition of our own states.
10
Time is, thus, a universal condition on
sensibility. Further, the conditions on understanding, the twelve categories,
are all couched in temporal terms: causality is necessary succession in time,
substantiality is necessary persistence through change. We can, thus, think of
the condition of time as the master condition, the most basic condition that
underlies all others. So, we may restate our inquiry thus: What would it mean
for time not to be granted?
Time is granted, in so far as things are considered as ordered temporally.
Time is removed, in so far as things are considered as not ordered
temporally. As an analogy, consider a baseball team. A baseball team (in the
abstract) is a system of positions, player roles, that can be occupied by a wide
range of particular people. We can consider these people in so far as they
constitute a baseball team, or we may consider them independently of their
roles on the team. If we imagine the institution of baseball to vanish, then
there would be no rst basemen, second basemen, etc. There would be no
tokens of any of the types dened in terms of baseball. There would be no
double plays, no extra inning games, and so on. Similarly, since our very
conception of objectivity is spelled out in terms of temporal features of
324 William Blattner
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objects, if we think away time, there are no temporal sequences, no instances
of endurance or change, no causal sequences, hence no objects. In the absence
of time, objects do not exist.
We have seen so far that time is a condition on the representability of
objects. Absent time, there are no objects. This does not imply, however, that
time is a subjective condition on representability. Why does Kant describe
time as a subjective condition? Kant argues in the Transcendental Aesthetic
that time is a system of relations that exists only in so far as it is represented
by us. Time cannot be a determination or order inhering in things
themselves, because such objective orders cannot precede the objects as
their condition, and be known and intuited a priori by means of synthetic
propositions.
11
Kants argument is notoriously difcult and almost certainly
unsound. I do not want to wade into it for its own sake. For our purposes
it is sufcient to note that Kant believes he has in his possession an argument
that time can only be a feature of objects that we impose upon experience,
rather than a determination or order that characterizes objects in them-
selves. We represent objects temporally, but they are not in themselves
temporal.
We can, thus, see that our non-existence would suspend or remove the
conditions on representation. Because time exists only as an order imposed on
objects by us, neither it, nor any determinations dened in terms of it, subsist
when we do not. Therefore, our initial way of distinguishing the empirical and
transempirical standpoints the empirical standpoint takes the conditions on
representation for granted and asks its questions in terms of those conditions,
whereas the transempirical standpoint removes these conditions may be
reduced to a simpler formulation: the empirical standpoint takes our existence
for granted, whereas the transempirical asks how things are independently of
whether we exist.
And so we can see how, in one sense, nature does not depend upon the
human mind, while in another sense, it does. If we stipulate the subjective
conditions on representability, thereby granting time, substantiality, and
causality, we can nd no reason to assert the dependence of nature on the
human mind. Quite the opposite, in fact. But if we suspend the a priori
conditions on representability, we think away time, and therefore objects in
time as well. The result is that from this standpoint, nature does depend on the
human mind. Kants way of expressing his conclusion is to say that time and
objects in time are empirically real, yet transcendentally ideal.
III
Heideggers innovation, according to me, is to embrace some of the basic
elements of Kants analysis, but to reject the transcendental idealism that
Kant thinks his analysis implies. That is, Heidegger accepts the empirical
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 325
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reality of the world around us, but denies its transcendental ideality. To do so,
he argues that the Kantian transempirical standpoint does not generate any
form of idealism. How does Heidegger drive a wedge between Kants
assumptions and his conclusion?
Heidegger rejects transcendental idealism, because he follows out the
implications of characterizing Kants conception of objectivity as an
understanding of being.
12
Among the twelve categories of pure reason that
help to constitute the conception of objectivity we nd the categories of
existence or actuality and possibility. According to Kants analysis in the
Postulates of Empirical Thought, to be possible is to agree with the formal
conditions of an experience in general,
13
which is to say, to conform to the
constraints laid down primarily by the analogies of experience. The analogies
are the rules or principles that require that all change be the alteration of a
substance and that all such alterations be in accordance with universal,
necessary, causal laws. To be actual is to be possible and connected with
some perception had by the subject.
14
The upshot of all this is that to exist is
to take place in accordance with the general causal laws governing nature.
This is an account of what it is to be, an understanding of being.
Given this analysis, it is easy to see why Heidegger would be inclined to
say that when the transcendental conditions on representability are
suspended, entities neither are nor are not. If existence is itself a category,
one that is dened only so long as the conception of objectivity is operative,
then existence is undened when the transcendental conditions are
suspended, just as fair ball is undened when the rules of baseball are
suspended. If the conception of objectivity or understanding of being
(existence) is suspended, then the question, Does that cat exist, or is it merely
a gment of my imagination? cannot be answered. If we think away time and
all that is dened in terms of it, we think away the very difference between
existence and non-existence.
Furthermore, dependence and independence are concepts that are in turn
dened in terms of existence.
15
For x to be dependent on y is for it to be the
case that x would not exist, if y did not. Likewise, if x is independent of y, then
x can exist, even when y does not. This means that dependence and
independence are concepts that are dened in terms of further concepts
(existence and non-existence) that are themselves undened, when the
conception of objectivity or understanding of being (the rules of the existence
game, as it were) are suspended. It follows, then, that when these rules are
suspended, objects neither do nor do not depend on the human mind or
Dasein. And if this is so, nally, then Kant was wrong to argue that when we
abstract away from the transcendental conditions on representability, objects
do not exist and are thereby shown to be dependent on the human mind.
Heidegger embraces Kants empirical realism, but rejects his transcendental
idealism.
326 William Blattner
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IV
In my 1994 treatment of this issue, I formulated Heideggers position a little
differently. There I argued that if the understanding of being is suspended,
neither entities do exist nor entities do not exist has truth-value. Because
neither answer has truth-value, I concluded that the question itself is
pointless. To this formulation David Cerbone offered two objections. First, he
pointed out that it is possible that either entities do exist or they do not has a
truth-value, even though neither of its disjuncts does. Second, he objected
that, If any possible answer to any question asked from the [transempirical]
standpoint is nonsensical, it is difcult, to say the least, to give sense to the
idea that there is any well-formed question being asked of these
circumstances either.
16
In other words, Cerbone points out that if the
question, Do entities exist, even when the understanding of being does not
obtain? both denes the transempirical standpoint and turns out to be a
pointless question, then it is hard to see how the transempirical standpoint
amounts to anything.
Today I have formulated my interpretation of Heidegger a little dif-
ferently, in a way that allows me to address Cerbones rst objection head-
on. If we suspend the understanding of being, then entities do exist and
entities do not exist not only lack truth-values; they are undened,
meaningless. Thus, the disjunction either entities do exist or they do not
is also undened, meaningless, if we suspend the understanding of being.
This response to Cerbones rst objection only seems to make his second
objection more pressing, however. If both entities do exist and entities do
not exist are undened, from the transempirical standpoint, but the
transempirical standpoint is precisely the standpoint we occupy, when we
ask such questions while suspending the understanding of being, then it is
indeed hard to see how the transempirical standpoint is itself anything but
meaningless.
In order to respond to Cerbones newly intensied second objection, let me
take a closer look at the difference between my 1994 formulation and my
formulation here. I framed the issue in 1994 in terms of truth-value for two
reasons. First, I wanted to offer the most defensible position by basing it on
the weakest possible claim. To say that the considered propositions lack truth-
value is certainly weaker than saying that they are meaningless. Second, I
thought I needed the weaker claim in order to block one potential defense of
Kant from Heideggers criticism. Consider the following orthodox Kantian
response to Heideggers argument, above, that since existence is a category,
items neither do nor do not exist, when considered from the transempirical
standpoint. An orthodox Kantian might point out that Kant does not exactly
argue that the categories are undened or meaningless, when the a priori
condition of time is suspended. Rather, eshing out the categories in terms of
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 327
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time is necessary for us to be able to apply the categories to experience, that
is, for us to be able to formulate judgments that are either true or false. The
categories still have a kind of transcendental-logical, in contrast with
experiential, signicance when the condition of time is suspended, but they
are useless in developing knowledge of the world, or science.
I sought to block this orthodox line of defense by pointing out that if the
statements entities exist, even when we do not and entities do not exist,
even when we do not lack truth-value, then they are useless not only in
science, but also in philosophy. Even if the questionable statements make a
kind of sense (call it transcendental-logical, if you like), they do not express
a Kantian judgment, that is, a representation that is capable of being true or
false. This means, further, that statements that embed them likewise lack
truth-value and fail to count as judgments, including, signicantly, the
statement of transcendental idealism. Thus, I argued, Kant is in no position to
propound transcendental idealism, even if as a doctrine it is not utterly
meaningless. In this manner I sought to defend Heideggers criticism of Kant
against an orthodox Kantian response.
I now see that my defense of Heideggers criticism was misguided, at least
as a development of Heideggers thinking. Heidegger himself would have no
interest in my defense of him, because he rejects the orthodox Kantian
distinction between empirical and transcendental-logical meaning in the rst
place. The category of existence, when considered independently of its
conditions of possible application, is called, in Kant-speak, a pure,
unschematized, transcendental-logical category or notion. According to
Heidegger, these unschematized categories are chimerical.
17
I cannot here
explore Heideggers rejection of the unschematized categories in detail; I
hope to do so on another occasion. For our purposes today, the crucial point is
that I was defending Heidegger with tools he rejected anyhow.
If I allow myself to break free of the need to defend Heidegger as I did in
1994, I can easily accept the conclusion that the statements, entities exist
independently of the understanding of being and entities do not exist are
meaningless, rather than merely devoid of truth-value. This, then, returns us
to Cerbones second criticism of my interpretation of Heidegger. Does not
making this change render my position ultimately less intelligible, rather than
more? If the very question that denes the transempirical standpoint
namely, how is it with the world when time does not obtain? makes no
sense, then it would seem that the transempirical standpoint is itself vacuous.
This is Cerbones second criticism.
As I did with the rst criticism, I think I can now simply accept and absorb
the second criticism. Indeed, that the transempirical standpoint is meaningless
is precisely Heideggers point. Heidegger rejects not just the thesis of
transcendental idealism, but in fact the philosophical standpoint that gives
rise to it. In sum, I want to say now that what it means to assert entities are
328 William Blattner
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depends on the global, transcendental, ontological framework that Heidegger
calls our understanding of being. That understanding consists of a series of
constraints on the way we talk, think, experience, and in general, understand
things. If that framework is suspended, then nothing we say, think, or
interpret, at least about entities (since we are reecting on the role of the
understanding of being) makes sense.
V
Now, one might want to press the disagreement between Cerbone and me
further. One might want to argue that if I make these concessions to Cerbone,
I cannot even state Heideggers position. This is precisely an objection
offered by Herman Philipse, and I suspect that Cerbone had this in mind as
well.
if it is nonsensical to raise transcendental questions concerning the relation
between Daseins Seinsverstandnis and entities as they are in themselves, apart from
Seinsverstandnis, one must conclude that Heideggers notion of a transcendental
framework is nonsensical as well .
18
If I understand Philipse, his point is this. Heidegger cannot both declare that
the transempirical standpoint is senseless and assert that being depends on
Dasein. Part of what it means to describe being as a transcendental
framework is to claim that being depends on Dasein. But if Heideggers
renement of Kant involves dismissing the transempirical standpoint, then
Heideggers own claim that being depends on Dasein should be dismissed as
well.
Before answering Philipses objection, let me introduce a little jargon.
Ontic dependence is a relation that holds, when one item or phenomenon
would not exist without another one. x depends ontically on y, if x could not
exist without y. (Correlatively, x is ontically independent of y, if x can exist
without y.) Ontic idealism is the thesis that some class of entities, or perhaps
all entities at large, is ontically dependent on us, the subject, Dasein.
(Correlatively, ontic realism is the thesis that this class of entities is ontically
independent of us.) Kant is an ontic realist from the empirical standpoint, an
ontic idealist from the transempirical standpoint. Ontological idealism is the
thesis that being depends on us. Being cannot depend ontically on Dasein,
because being is not an entity. So, whatever the relation of dependence turns
out to be, in virtue of which being depends on Dasein, it cannot be ontic
dependence. Let us call this as-yet undened relation ontological depen-
dence.
Returning now to Philipses objection, note that it assumes that Heidegger
asserts ontological idealism from the transempirical standpoint. Philipse
infers that because dependence and independence claims are undened from
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 329
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the transempirical standpoint, Heidegger cannot assert that being depends on
Dasein. But Heidegger does not assert ontological idealism from the
transempirical standpoint. In analyzing what being means and how it relates
to Dasein, Heidegger is not suspending the understanding of being, but rather
studying it. He does so, clearly, from a standpoint that is neither the empirical
standpoint that takes the understanding of being for granted and applies it to
experience, nor the transempirical standpoint that asks how the world is
independently of our understanding of being. This third standpoint we can
call the phenomenological standpoint.
19
Phenomenology is the study of the transcendental constraints that make up
our understanding of being. In this regard, Heideggers phenomenology is on
a par with Kants transcendental philosophy. Kant writes, I entitle
transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects
as with the mode of our knowledge of objects in so far as this mode of
knowledge is to be possible a priori.
20
For Heidegger, phenomenology is
ontology, because phenomenologys peculiar task is to provide a description
or interpretation of being itself. To analyze and make claims about being is
not to apply an understanding of being to experience or to entities. Being is
not an entity or formal system of entities; being is not, for example, nature or
reality. Being is, instead, a framework of constraints that determines whether
something is. As Heidegger himself puts it, being determines entities as
entities (SZ, p. 6).
This response to Philipse might simply create another problem, however. If
dependence and independence are matters that can only be decided from the
empirical standpoint (because the empirical standpoint is the position we
occupy, when we take an understanding of being for granted and use it),
and if Heidegger asserts the alleged dependence of being on Dasein from
the transcendental or phenomenological standpoint, then it appears that
Heidegger has confused standpoints. He really should not assert anything like
the dependence of being on Dasein, because there is no standpoint from
which it could be asserted. From the empirical standpoint, one simply takes
the understanding of being for granted and asks empirical questions, such as
whether photosynthesis is dependent upon sunlight. From the transempirical
standpoint, one suspends the understanding of being and is unable to ask any
questions concerning dependence or independence at all. And from the
transcendental or phenomenological standpoint, one studies and lays out what
the understanding of being is. From none of these standpoints could one assert
anything like the dependence of being on Dasein.
To work our way past this worry, we must see how Heidegger could be in a
position to assert something like the dependence of being on Dasein from the
transcendental or phenomenological standpoint. This is another way of saying
that we must explain what ontological dependence is, such that it could be
established from the transcendental or phenomenological standpoint.
330 William Blattner
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Ontological dependence is a form of conceptual dependence. A
phenomenological interpretation of being is an articulation of the constraints
actually in operation when we encounter entities. So, for example, in our
disengaged perceptual experience of the world, entities are items that exhibit
rule-like regularity in the course of experience. That is, Heidegger essentially
accepts the Kantian-Husserlian analysis of objectivity as regularity through
the course of time. (He restricts the analysis to the being of occurrent entities;
he does not universalize the ontology of the occurrent, as Husserl and Kant
do.) In our practical-manipulative experience of the world, entities are items
that exhibit functionality, subservience to some function or towards-which.
One such system of constraints can depend upon another, if the dependent
system of constraints makes sense in terms of the system depended upon. This
is precisely the sort of ontological dependence explored by Heidegger in the
nal quarter of Being and Time. I do not want to sink into the details here, for
they are prodigious, but it is worth highlighting one important element of
Heideggers analysis. In Heideggers account, the dependence relations are
all worked out in terms of modes of time that enframe each of the
understandings of being. Our understanding of being occurrent is worked out
in terms of the temporal framework that Heidegger calls the ordinary
conception of time, whereas our understanding of being available is worked
out in terms of world-time. The various understandings of being depend upon
one another not directly, but by way of their underlying modes of time. The
ordinary conception of time depends upon world-time, which depends upon
human temporality, and for that reason being occurrent depends upon being
available, which depends upon existence (being human).
In order for this system of conceptual dependence to be coherent, it must
not involve or require any relations of ontic dependence. After all, let us
assume for reductio that the ontological dependence of being occurrent upon
being available presupposed some relation of ontic dependence. In that case,
in order to assert the ontological dependence in question, Heidegger would
have to be in a position also to put forth the ontic dependence. But ontic
dependence, we have seen, is something that can be asserted only from the
empirical standpoint, not from the transcendental or phenomenological
standpoint. And this would mean that Heidegger incoherently restricts ontic
dependence claims to the empirical standpoint, while covertly relying upon
them from the transcendental or phenomenological standpoint.
Now, it might at rst seem, given my explanation above, that the
ontological dependence of being occurrent upon being available does in fact
rely upon a covert ontic dependence: the dependence of ordinary time upon
world-time. The crucial insight we need here in order to save Heideggers
analysis is this: the modes of time are not entities. The ordinary conception of
time regards ordinary time as an entity or system of entities, but in fact,
Heidegger argues, it is not. The degradation of time into an entity is part of the
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 331
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forgetfulness of being characteristic of the Western philosophical and
scientic tradition. It is, moreover, because Heidegger does not regard time
and its several modes as entities that he introduces his peculiar expression,
time temporalizes itself (die Zeit zeitigt sich). Heidegger does not say, time
is, just as he does not say, being is, but instead, time temporalizes itself,
there is being, or later on, being obtains [das Sein ereignet sich].
In sum, Philipses objection to my reconstruction of Heideggers revision
of Kant is based on a confusion, the assumption that Heidegger asserts
ontological idealism from the transempirical standpoint. He does not.
Ontological idealism is a result of phenomenological or transcendental
inquiry. Heidegger (following Kant, at least partially) distinguishes the
philosophical standpoint of transcendental phenomenology which is the
stance we occupy when we are reecting on the conceptual constraints that
govern our understanding of the world from two other non-philosophical
standpoints that can be characterized in terms of the discovery of these
conceptual constraints. The empirical standpoint is the everyday attitude we
occupy, when we experience and seek to understand ourselves and the world.
It is the attitude that takes our understanding of being for granted. Once we
recognize that there are transcendental constraints on our understanding of
things, it is possible for us to imagine that we can intelligibly ask how things
are independently of those constraints, as long as we do not acknowledge, as
Kant does not, that these transcendental constraints make up an understanding
of being. This transempirical standpoint is an illusion of sorts, generated by
the discovery of the transcendental constraints, joined with a failure to
acknowledge that they are an understanding of being.
VI
We have seen that from the empirical standpoint most objects are ontically
independent of Dasein. We have also seen that from no standpoint do all
objects depend ontically on Dasein. Further, we have seen that the several
sorts of being (being occurrent, being available, human existence) form an
order of ontological dependence, according to which being occurrent depends
on being available, which in turn depends on human existence. These
ontological dependences, moreover, hold in virtue of the ontological
dependence of the various modes of time upon one another. So, we see two
concepts of dependence (ontic and ontological), and by keeping them
distinguished from each other, we can sort out many of the apparent
difculties in Heideggers view.
There is one place, however, where it seems we cannot keep ontic and
ontological dependence neatly distinguished. In order to argue that when
Dasein does not exist entities neither are nor are not, we have to assume that
332 William Blattner
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when Dasein does not exist no mode of time obtains. It is because no mode of
time obtains, when Dasein does not exist, that the rules of existence (the
understanding of being) are suspended. Being is conceptually interwoven
with time, and so, when time does not obtain, neither does being. Now,
consider the statement, when Dasein does not exist, time does not obtain.
The consequent of this formula, time does not obtain, is not articulated from
the empirical standpoint. It seems to be, rather, the very presupposition that
denes the transempirical standpoint, thus, an assertion made from the
phenomenological standpoint. The antecedent, however, Dasein does not
exist, seems on its face to be an ontic statement made from the empirical
standpoint. In order for Dasein does not exist to make sense, the
understanding of Daseins being, at least, must be operative. And when the
understanding of being is operative we have an empirical statement. Thus, it
could well seem as if Heidegger must actually occupy the empirical
standpoint, when asserting ontological idealism. Taylor Carman gives
expression to this worry, when he writes, Surely, the [empirical standpoint]
is the only one it makes sense for an existential phenomenologist like
Heidegger to entertain.
21
To begin to unravel this difculty, let us start with the following
observation: the transcendental or phenomenological standpoint is the only
live candidate for being the standpoint from which the disputed statement
could be made, When Dasein does not exist, time does not obtain. The
consequent cannot be stated from the empirical standpoint, and the antecedent
cannot be stated from the transempirical standpoint. This leaves the
transcendental or phenomenological standpoint as the only horse in the
eld. This suggestion might seem like an immediate non-starter, however,
since it appears to be characteristic of the transcendental or phenome-
nological standpoint that it does not underwrite existence or non-existence
claims. The phenomenological perspective is an analytical attitude in
which we describe or interpret the various modes of being and how they
interrelate. Only given the understanding(s) of being articulated in the
phenomenological attitude may we assess whether any given entity does or
does not exist.
Now, once we put the point this way, we can gain some leverage on the
problem, at least if we are willing to press forward into highly disputed
terrain. It is characteristic of Husserlian phenomenology that from within the
phenomenological attitude, one can neither assert nor deny any existence
claims. For Heidegger, however, the displacement of the phenomenological
from the empirical attitude is not so clean. Admittedly, this way of
distinguishing Heideggers methodology from Husserls is controversial.
Steven Crowell, for one, has offered a clear argument to the contrary.
22
I have
elsewhere tried to argue against Crowell and other methodological neo-
Husserlians.
23
Rather than work through the debate again, I want to assume
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 333
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the result of my arguments from elsewhere and see whether they can be used
to untangle the issues we now confront.
In Husserls phenomenological reduction, we investigate the meaning of
phenomena, but not their existence. We ask what the world means, not
whether the world exists. The natural attitude, by way of contrast, involves a
basic investment in the existence of the world. Husserl applies this distinction
not only to the world, but also to the subject. In the phenomenological
attitude, we investigate the meaning of subjectivity, but not whether the
subject, even we ourselves, exist. In his lecture series Prolegomena to the
History of the Concept of Time,
24
Heidegger argues that this is not possible,
because the being of Dasein is only to be and nothing more. Dasein is
ontologically distinctive in that what it means to be Dasein is determined in
the course of trying to be it, rather than xed in advance by some concept or
essence of human existence or some sort of empirically real human nature.
This is the heart of Heideggers existentialism, and it distinguishes him
radically from Husserl. Whereas for Husserl and Kant, for example, human
subjectivity is dened by its rationality, so that to be human is to experience
the world mediated by the normative demands of rationality, for Heidegger no
such a priori constraints govern what it is to be human. What it is for me to be
human is determined by the self-understanding into which I press ahead in
leading my life. It follows from this that it is not possible to work out a
phenomenology of human being without committing oneself to some way of
life. And this commitment is a practical one, a commitment operative in the
concrete pursuit of some way of life. Thus, doing ontology requires a practical
commitment to ones own existence.
Consequently, the phenomenological attitude is not neatly separable from
the empirical attitude, at least in so far as one is engaged in a phenomenology
of human being and in so far as the particular empirical commitment in which
we are interested is the commitment to ones own existence. The
phenomenological attitude bleeds into the empirical to the extent that it
embraces at least this one empirical commitment. Thus, Dasein exists can
be stated from the phenomenological standpoint, and the statement, When
Dasein does not exist, time does not obtain, is not to be rejected a priori on
the grounds that it confuses standpoints.
Put slightly differently, the statement, Dasein exists, can be stated in two
different ways, one empirical, one phenomenological. In so far as one takes
Daseins being for granted, assumes that to be human is to be in such and such
a way, and then asks whether Dasein exists, ones attitude is balanced heavily
toward the empirical. This is the sort of thing we do, when we state that
Dasein did not yet exist seven million years ago. But in so far as one does not
take Daseins being for granted, in so far as one asks oneself, What is it to be
human anyhow? ones attitude is balanced toward the phenomenological.
Even when so balanced toward the phenomenological, one cannot avoid an
334 William Blattner
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empirical commitment to ones own existence. But the emphasis in this
commitment is rather different than it is when one asks na vely whether
Dasein exists, taking the contours of human being for granted.
VII
I conclude that the basic outline of my 1994 discussion of Heideggers
Kantian idealism survives the objections posed to it by Cerbone, Philipse, and
Carman.
25
These challenging objections force me to clarify and rene that
position, but its essentials remain intact. Heidegger embraces empirical
realism, but rejects transcendental idealism, because he follows out the logic
of Kants position further even than Kant does. If the understanding is the
lawgiver of nature,
26
if the understanding sets the terms upon which entities
do or do not exist, then when the understanding does not exist, entities neither
are nor are not. To imagine that the question whether any entities exist, even
when we do not, can have a coherent answer, is to assume that something
beyond the understanding is the lawgiver of existence.
27
It is to assume
something on the order of a divine understanding, a Gods eye point of view
from which the question can be asked. In his extensive interpretation of
Kants rst Critique, Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes that Kants break-
through was to see that questions of existence can only be asked by human
beings and subject to the constraints imposed by our understanding.
According to Heidegger, Kant rejects the theocentric standpoint from which
traditional metaphysics imagined itself to proceed and fully embraces the
anthropocentric attitude. Kants transcendental idealism, Heidegger argues, is
a residual element of theocentric metaphysics lurking illegitimately in Kants
thinking. That is, as quoted earlier, The concept of the thing in itself falls
along with the presupposition of an absolute intuition that produces things in
the rst place .
28
NOTES
1 Kant (1929), A2628/B4244. I shall henceforth refer to The Critique of Pure Reason with
the abbreviation CPR. Citations refer to the rst (A) and second (B) edition by the standard
conventions.
2 What we have meant to say is that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of
appearance; that the things which we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them as
being, nor their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us, and that if the
subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the
whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time
themselves, would vanish. As appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.
(CPR, A42/B5960)
3 CPR, A3767.
4 Heidegger (1979b), p. 212, hereinafter referred to by the abbreviation SZ.
Heideggers Kantian Idealism Revisited 335
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5 An alternative interpretation here is to construe Heideggers point thus: the question whether
entities would exist, if asked when we do not, is not answerable, because we would not be
around to answer it. One would hope that this is not Heideggers point, since it reduces his
claims in the p. 212 passage to trivialities.
6 Heidegger (1977), p. 99.
7 Blattner (1994), Blattner (1999).
8 Cerbone (1995), Carman (2000), and Philipse (1998).
9 Ofcially in translation, Kant calls this the concept of the object in general. Note, however,
that the German term Begriff can be translated either as concept or as conception. The
latter captures better in English the sort of item Kant has in mind.
10 CPR, A34/B50.
11 CPR, A33/B49.
12 Thus, the positive results of Kants Critique of Pure Reason, as an advance in working out
what belongs to a nature in general, also do not rest upon a theory of knowledge. His
transcendental logic is an a priori material logic of the region of being of nature. (SZ, pp.
1011)
13 CPR, A220/B267.
14 Whatever is connected with a perception according to empirical laws, is actual. (CPR,
A376; see also A225/B272)
15 Below we will have to distinguish between ontic dependence and ontological dependence. I
am using the term dependence here in this paragraph to refer to ontic dependence.
16 Cerbone (1995), p. 410. Taylor Carman offers the same objection as well: Besides, of what
philosophical use is a [transempirical] perspective, if all it does is generate senseless
questions? (Carman, 2000).
17 The categories are precisely not pure concepts of reason, but rather, they are concepts that
only arise, if as Kant correctly puts it in 10 of the Critique the originary, pure, time-
related synthesis in the unity of its modes is brought to concept on the basis of time-related
apperception. The categories are the originary concepts [Urbegriffe], which rst develop, if
the pure time-related synthesis conceives itself, grasps itself in terms of what makes it
possible. (Heidegger, 1977).
18 Philipse (1998), p. 433, n258.
19 I was not clear on this point in my 1994 treatment, but tried to sort it out in my 1999 book.
20 CPR, A1112/B25.
21 Carman (2000).
22 Crowell (1990).
23 Blattner (1999), in the introduction.
24 Heidegger (1979a), p. 152.
25 Cerbone and Carman both also raise worries about the textual adequacy of my interpretation.
Cerbone emphasizes the apparently more realistic passages to be found in Heideggers 1928
lectures on Leibniz (Heidegger, 1978). I have addressed this worry in my 1999 book, where I
acknowledge the inconsistency of Heideggers corpus and attribute it to a wavering of his
commitment to temporal idealism during the later 1920s. Carman raises two challenges.
First, Carman states that Heidegger never asserted temporal idealism (Carman, 2000, p.
309). Oddly, on the next page he refers to the passages in which Heidegger at least plausibly
does assert temporal idealism. The p. 309 statement thus appears to be an overstatement.
Second, Carman questions my reliance on a passage from Heideggers mid-30s metaphysics
lectures (Heidegger, 1966) as being inconsistent with my dating of Heideggers
abandonment of ontological idealism in the late 1920s. I acknowledge that the late date
of one of Heideggers clearest statements of temporal idealism is odd, but in my opinion this
reects Heideggers own ambivalence, an ambivalence that is not resolved until the late 30s,
rather than any inconsistency on my part.
26 Thus the understanding is something more than a power of formulating rules through
comparison of the appearances; it is itself the lawgiver of nature. (CPR, A126)
27 Or else it is to ask a thoroughly mundane question about the way things relate to one another
within the empirical perspective we normally occupy.
336 William Blattner
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28 I would like to thank both the Philosophy Department of Northwestern University and the
participants in the fourth annual meeting of the International Society for Phenomenological
Studies, both of whom heard a presentation of an earlier draft of this paper and who provided
very helpful feedback and discussion.
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Received 15 April 2004
William Blattner, Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057-
1133, USA. E-mail: blattnew@georgetown.edu
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