The difficulty in seeing what the proper definition of“being”is given that“being”
is“unified by analogy”is what motivates the philosophical project ofBeing and Time.
That it is not at all obvious how to“define up”the generic sense of“being”doesn’t
show that“being”is semantically primitive. No one knows what the correct defin-
ition of“S knows that P”is, and few infer from this sad state of affairs that either
“S knows that P”is in fact semantically primitive, or that we do not in fact have the
concept of knowledge.^31 “S knows thatP” is not semantically primitive—it is
somehow“defined up”out of the notions of belief, truth, evidence, and who knows
what else, although it should be clear by now that the project of“defining up”this
expression is no walk in the park.
It is an interesting question why, despite his numerous disagreements with
Aristotle about the question of being, Heidegger nonetheless follows Aristotle in
taking being to have a central mode in terms of which the others are to be under-
stood. For Aristotle, the central mode is the mode of being enjoyed by substances,
whereas for Heidegger, it isExistenz, the mode of being enjoyed by Daseins. Perhaps
Heidegger follows Aristotle here in this assumption about how modes of being are
related to one another because it is harder to see how one can answer the question of
the meaning of“being”at all without it.^32 And the mode of being of Dasein is a good
choice for a focal mode since Dasein is that entity for whom its own being is an
issue—and so in a sense Dasein’s mode of being has being built into it!^33
(In chapter 5, I will discuss an answer to the question of the meaning of“being”
that is neutral on whether there is a central mode of being.)
Van Inwagen should be willing to concede the intelligibility of a language that
contains semantically primitive restricted quantifiers. But he will resist the notion
that English is such a language. From van Inwagen’s perspective, Heidegger’s puta-
tively primitive restricted quantifiers can be shown to be equivalent todefined
restricted quantifiers in a perfectly obvious way:
xhasExistenz, i.e.,∃existenzy(x=y) = df.∃y(x=yandxis a Dasein.)^34
xhassubsistence, i.e.,∃subsistencey(x=y) = df.∃y(x=yandxis a number or some
other abstracta.)On van Inwagen’s view, the unrestricted quantifier is prior in meaning to the
restricted ones.
(^31) If Williamson (2001) is correct,“knows”is semantically primitive.
(^32) My remarks here are profitably contrasted with McNamus (2013: 559–60). Note that I do not think
Heidegger thought that the relations between Dasein’s mode of being and the other modes of being are to
be understood in terms of Aristotle’s four causes. Perhaps Aristotle thought this about how the mode of
being of substances relates to the modes of being of accidents; see Shields (1999) and Ward (2008: ch. 3) for
discussion of this hypothesis. 33
34 See Heidegger (1962: 32–5).
I’m tabling the question of whether Heidegger thinks that other entities besides Dasein haveExistenz
as their way of being.