MARTIN HEIDEGGERS CONCEPT OF TIME

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) wrote in his magnum opus, Being and Time, his concept of time, but
before we proceed to this concept, let us see first the word Dasein, since his concept of time is connected
to it.
For Heidegger, the question of the authenticity of individual Dasein cannot be separated from its
historicality. On one hand, Dasein, as mortal, is stretched along between birth and death, and thrown into
its world, that is, thrown into its possibilities, possibilities which Dasein is charged with the task of
assuming. On the other hand, Dasein's access to this world and these possibilities is always via a history
and a tradition. This is the question of world historicality, and among its consequences is Heidegger's
argument that Dasein's potential for authenticity lies in the possibility of choosing a hero.
He began by asking how does something like time initially show itself for everyday, circumspect taking
care? In what mode of taking care and using tools does it become explicitly accessible? If time has been
made public with the disclosedness of the world, if it has always been taken care of with the
discoveredness of innerworldly beings belonging to the disclosedness of the world since Dasein
calculates time reckoning with itself, then the mode of behavior in which one orients oneself explicitly
toward time lies in the use of the clock. This limits time to its temporality, to make it present. What shows
itself in this making present is time. This time is what is counted, showing itself in following, making
present, and counting the moving pointer in such a way that making present temporalities itself in ecstatic
unity with retaining and awaiting horizontally open according to the earlier and later.
Basically, it is Aristotelian. Aristotle does not concern the beginning of time, but rather the movement in a
direction of natural understanding of being. Time is understood as a sequence, as the flux of nows, as the
course of time. But Heidegger further asked, what is implied by the interpretation of world time taken
care of? The outcome of the progression of Heidegger's argument is the thought that the being of Dasein
is time. Nevertheless, he concludes his work with a set of enigmatic questions foreshadowing the
necessity of a destruction; that is, a transformation of the history of philosophy in relation to temporality.
These were the questions to be taken up in the never completed continuation of his project:
The existential and ontological constitution of the totality of Dasein is grounded in
temporality. Accordingly, a primordial mode of temporalizing of ecstatic temporality
itself must make the ecstatic project of being in general possible. How is this mode of
temporalizing of temporality to be interpreted? Is there a way leading from primordial
time to the meaning of being? Does time itself reveal itself as the horizon of being?

Sources:
Heidegger, M., Being and Time. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1996.