RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Robert Shaw
43 Eskdale Road
Papakowhai
WELLINGTON
Telephone +64 4 233 0252
Email: robert.shaw@porirua.net
Supervisor: Professor Robin
Small
Associate Supervisor: Professor
Peter Roberts
University of
Heideggerian pedagogy: horizons of disclosure acquired in schools
Abstract
This thesis takes us towards a Heideggerian pedagogy. It derives a model of horizon acquisition from Heidegger’s concept of truth. The model is developed by considering examples of horizons in two broad categories - the fundamental, grounding, founding horizons and those that appear subsequently (which I call the “derived” horizons). The foundational horizons of a human being may include those associated with time consciousness, logic, and primal identity. Derived horizons may include those associated with objects, spaces, art, science, technology, music, and mathematics. The pedagogical question associated with Heidegger’s concept of truth as disclosure is “how might others influence the acquisition of horizons of disclosure?” As a first step towards answering this question, the thesis contrasts the use of ‘truth’ in a proposed Heideggerian pedagogy with ‘truth’ as it appears in current Western pedagogical praxis. The Heideggerian pedagogy entails truth as the disclosure of beings within horizons. Current Western school practice overwhelmingly demonstrates correspondence theories of truth at work.
1) Background to the area/programme of inquiry/research:
This research project builds around theoretical issues that emerged from the student’s practical involvement in education. In particular, concerns about the large number of students who do not manage to achieve within the state-funded schooling system, including culturally diverse groups, and students unable to maintain themselves in schools. Western countries invest heavily to bring these students back into their education systems and to keep them learning.
Many factors affect this situation, and they are subject to investigation in different intellectual disciplines such as economics, social theory, history, and politics. Frequently the problems addressed in different disciplines relate to teaching practice and the concept of pedagogy. There are also institutions established to teach teachers how to teach – they must give practical expression to a concept of pedagogy. The concept of pedagogy is central to the practical predicament and to the theory that pertains.
Pedagogical systems are technology designed to assist students with learning. What we understand by “technology” is critical to any discussion of pedagogy. The approach taken in this thesis is that, broadly speaking, technology is “knowing what to do” to bring about determined ends - it is not the physical objects that are the products of knowledge.
The concept of pedagogy embraces both aims and method. It frequently reflects the origin of the word which is the Ancient Latin word “paedagogus”, which is derived from words that refer to the slave who leads the children to school and supervises them. From the 1600s “pedagogy” has appeared in English in the sense of “the function, profession, or practice of a pedagogue; the work or occupation of teaching; the art or science of teaching, pedagogics” (Entry for "pedagogy" in the Oxford English Dictionary, 2000-). In some countries, in contrast, the word “pedagogy” means “educational theory”.
It is hardly surprising that Western schooling, being largely a state enterprise, with universal and compulsory requirements for children, should mirror the ethos of its age. Practical education reflects the culture of society and individuals who work within organisations. Within the Western tradition, pedagogy developed broadly in association with the assumptions of empiricism.
This perspective on the situatedness of pedagogy - as an expression of empiricism, positivism, and scientism - was relevant when critical pedagogy emerged. In his historical collection, Giroux describes what he calls the culture of positivism and technocratic rationality and he draws upon the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School and Marcuse (Bohman, 2005; Giroux, 1997; Marcuse, 1991). For Giroux, Western culture aggressively suppresses alternative thought, particularly that which might engender discontent by making people more aware of their history particularly its oppressive aspects. Instead of this, there is a form of social engineering somewhat analogous to physical engineering.
Dissatisfaction with the empiricist tradition is also present in the philosophy of science. Ihde has summarised two conferences that were reacting against positivist interpretations of science. He described those interpretations: “Positivistic interpretations of science could be characterized as extreme late forms of Modern rationalistic interpretations which, in certain respects, saw the phenomenon of science as a kind of logical and propositional enterprise focused upon theory and its subsequent verifications - or falsifications - and clearly framed in terms of modernist epistemologies” (Ihde, 1997, p.1).
Some existentialist thinkers about pedagogy would agree with Giroux regarding the history of pedagogy, its situatedness, and the dominance of positivism in Western society and pedagogical praxis. For example, Vandenberg in the introduction to his collection of reprints on the phenomenology of education discusses the role of the philosophy of education and the ontology therein. It is because of the “societal dominance of scientific and technological thinking” that questions regarding pedagogy need to be asked with urgency (Vandenberg, 1971, p.3).
Vandenberg claims that there are significant unheralded assumptions within science and considers the ontology of science beginning with his observation that scientists must be awake when they work (Vandenberg, 1971, pp.3-10). His notion that there are significant unheralded assumptions in science is disputed on all sides, as is shown in a collection on the hermeneutic philosophy of science produced in honour of Patrick Heelan (Babich, 2002b). However, the general view, the idea that science and technocratic rationality pervades Western education practice, seems reasonable. Accordingly, any radical alternative theory of education is likely to spring from outside of this area.
The present research proposal is broadly consistent with Giroux and Vandenberg. It is consistent with their suggestion that we must ground an alternative pedagogy outside of the scientific / technological paradigm, and that an alternative pedagogy may assist people to address the practical issues.
2) Purpose of inquiry/research:
This thesis will consider the implications of Heidegger’s ontological concept of truth for some pedagogical problems. First, the project will critically examine Heidegger’s concept of truth and develop a coherent account of that concept. The examples used in this work will be drawn from pedagogy. Then, the concept, and particularly the notion of horizons of disclosure that it entails, will be used as a base for a discussion of a number of pedagogical problems.
Heidegger’s early ontological account of truth locates truth in the human being. “ ‘There is’ truth only in so far as Dasein i s and so long as Dasein i s. Entities are uncovered only when Dasein is; and only as long as Dasein is, are they disclosed” (sic "i s" and the italics, Heidegger, 1962, p.269). Inwood describes this as a “striking doctrine” (Inwood, 2000, p.48).
The
strongest contrast with such accounts is a stand that locates truth in
statements, sentences, or symbols and establishes truth by some form of
correspondence or similarity between the statement and something else (another
statement, an idea, a state of affairs in the world, or to the totality of
accepted propositions). Examples include the theories of Russell (realism and
correspondence), Austin (correspondence), Alston (realism), Horgan (semantic
and metaphysical realism), Blanshard (coherence),
There are concepts of truth that Heidegger considers at length, such as those of Lotze and Husserl, but he sweeps them all into one bag: they are examples of the “logical prejudice” and entail comparisons between things extant (including the objects of consciousness, etc). Whilst Aristotle has often been placed in the same bag, Heidegger tried to show that Aristotle’s concept of truth aligned with his own – a controversial claim (Dahlstrom, 2001; Inwood, 2002a).
Heidegger’s account of truth involves a complex or “constellation” of four prime elements and an account of the relationship between the elements. The elements are the undisclosed earth, man, horizons of disclosure (both transcendental and derived), and the disclosed, ontic world.
The proposal is to base the thesis on the early Heidegger, the pre-1930s thinking; however, where it is appropriate I will use work from his later period. The key passages by Heidegger are: Being and Time, pp. 256-273 (disclosedness and the correspondence theory of truth), pp.396-403 (the present, temporality), pp. 449-455 (a logic that shall “strive ahead of the sciences”, p.451); The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, pp.177-224 (truth and assertion); and Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, pp.109-136, (propositional truth and ontic transcendence) (Heidegger, 1962; Heidegger, 1982; Heidegger, 1984). Supporting these key passages are his Phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle and Ontology – The Hermeneutics of Facticity (Heidegger, 1999; Heidegger, 2001).
There does not appear to be a convenient Heideggerian text with the heading ‘Horizons”. Accordingly, the thesis must construct his account in this primarily from the sources listed. Perhaps chapter 4 on “significance” in Ontology is a contender as a section that could be headed “Horizons”. However, it deals with only some aspects of the topic of horizons, and he decided not to deliver that section to his students (Heidegger, 1999, pp.71-80).
At this stage, I make two comments about the relevance of the later work that he wrote from around 1936 onwards (Young, 2002, p.1, sets out a discussion of the distinction between the early and later Heidegger). First, it has a different focus, one that does not support the purpose of the thesis. Heidegger in his latter work is more concerned (although not exclusively of course) about the grounding of human kind as opposed to individual Dasein.
Second, the latter work, in my view, may adjust the terminology more than it alters the fundamental conception of truth that Heidegger developed. By this, I mean the overall structure of Heidegger’s account of truth appears to be consistent. For example, “Alētheia, unconcealment thought as the clearing of presence, is not yet truth” (Heidegger, 1993, p.446) which contrasts with the earlier use of “truth” and “unconcealment” interchangeably (Heidegger, 1993; Wrathall, 1999, pp.70-71). However, both these accounts are discussions that have the horizon concept as their central feature. With regards to the notion of ‘horizon’ Ihde notes “the seemingly odd language of the later Heidegger is in fact straight description required by the phenomena” (Ihde, 1974, p.19). This probably makes it consistent with the initial concepts, or at least with what Heidegger was trying to achieve.
In summary, Heidegger developed the fundamental conception of truth before the publication of Being and Time and it relates to the individual. It is to that work that this thesis must look for a more full understanding of the concept of horizon.
Below, I set out several promising, tentative directions to examine:
1. Truth in schools
2. Heidegger’s concept of truth and its relation to pedagogy (the critical importance of the horizon of disclosure)
3. Heidegger’s concept of ‘thrownness’
4. The relationship between horizons of disclosure.
1 Truth in schools
There is a great deal of talking in schools. There are statements, and judgements about statements, spoken all the time. On the surface, overwhelmingly, truth appears to be located within assertions. Teachers assume that truth is established through relationships to other propositions, or facts in an “external” world. This is the appearance within our institutions of the Western tradition of empiricism alluded to earlier.
The present thesis is not an empirical study. However, it is important to realise about schools, both the pervasiveness of the assumption that statements are the locus of truth, and the implications of this assumption. When secondary school subjects are taught, allegedly true statements are being made; when student conduct is in question, their guilt or innocence is established by the degree of correspondence with rules; when tests are marked the correspondence between the students’ answers and a set of model answers is what counts.
There appear to be features of Heidegger’s ontological concept that take us away from the inherent presuppositions that inhabit correspondence theories.
Some propositions that relate to a Heideggerian perspective on correspondence theory and pedagogy are:
1. There are “authoritarian presuppositions” within ‘pedagogy’
2. The presuppositions relate to correctness of assertion
3. Assertions according to correspondence theory have the logical character of being true or false
4. Students infrequently judge for themselves the truth of assertions when they are taught
5. Correspondence theories provide one account of how the truth of assertions may be established
6. Heidegger’s ontological account is an alternative to correspondence accounts.
Following Heidegger’s account of the correspondence theory, we must consider each of his three aspects of assertion (disclosure, predication, and communication) in turn to show how they relate to the students’ task of establishing truth. I wish to explore how each of the three aspects may relate to the six listed propositions.
The
example that I have been working on in relation to the list above involves
Work in this way could, I claim:
1. Establish for the thesis some direct links to educational practice
2. Inform us on the correspondence theory
3. Provide the base of examples that I will need for deliberations on ontological truth.
2 Heidegger’s concept of truth and its relation to pedagogy
Which of the “elements” within the constellation of truth (or which relationship between elements) is going to relate most directly to pedagogy? Where in the constellation we should look if we are to draw out pedagogical implications?
The elements of truth are interdependent and that we are dealing with a whole framework of ideas. Hence, the selection of an element, or connection, as a focus is not a declaration that the other elements are irrelevant or non-participating in the analysis.
The potential of Dasein to move beyond facticity and into its future, in accordance with the fundamental mode of existence for Dasein, is dependent on the presence of an horizon of disclosure within which truth may be revealed. Horizons, in Heidegger’s sense, are limiting, boundaries of fields of possible understanding. Accordingly, it is sensible to begin a study of truth and pedagogy by considering horizons of disclosure.
To consider how horizons of disclosure come to be present we need to develop a series of examples, building on all that are available in the literature. Preliminary explorations in this direction suggest that issues about being and being-in-the-world appear in new guise.
3 Heidegger’s concept of ‘thrownness’
Few recent discussions apply Heidegger’s core notions of being and truth to practical problems. Young’s books are exceptions in this regard, and they attempt to apply Heidegger’s thinking to human problems such as those in architecture, ecology and personal relationships (Young, 2001; Young, 2002). Young provides a model, an approach that could be used in education. He brings Heidegger’s concepts into the language of today’s practical issues and then deliberately seeks examples. In this, he contrasts with the phenomenologists who much earlier attempted to “apply” Heidegger.
As an experiment, consider how the concept of ‘thrownness’ might in examination reveal to us ideas that are useful in our thinking about pedagogy. In keeping with the focus of the thesis, this is done having regard to the notion of horizon.
Being and Time: “Yet, every Dasein always exists factically. It is not a free-floating self-projection; but its character is determined by thrownness as a Fact of the entity which it is; and, as so determined, it has in each case already been delivered over to existence, and it constantly so remains. Dasein's facticity, however, is essentially distinct from the factuality of something present-at-hand. Existent Dasein does not encounter itself as something present-at-hand within-the-world…” (Heidegger, 1962, p.321).
The important link to the concept of ‘horizon’ in this passage is the reference to “present-at-hand”, because “present-at-hand” is one of the horizons Heidegger develops and it is firmly “within-the-world”.
However, in the quoted passage, there might be a second less direct link to the concept of ‘horizon’. This second link could, I argue, open up the prospect of pedagogy.
The early Heidegger relates thrownness to a Dasein entering a situation that is preordained, inevitable, and unalterable. Dasein has to “be as it is and as it can be” (Heidegger, 1962, p.321). Subsequently, Heidegger adopts a more complex view regarding thrownness - he allows for development through historical eras. One vehicle for this development in thinking was Heidegger’s work on art. Art as the ‘opening up of world’ (Young, 2001, pp.19-21). In adding this complexity, Heidegger is maintaining (in my view) his early conception of thrownness. The significant change is the new emphasis on being thrown into a form of life that is dependent on others. For Heidegger, the scope of thrownness is to a considerable extent determined by the historical era and by culture which he calls “heritage” (German "Erbe", Heidegger, 1962, p.541, see also his use of "heritage" on pages 448 and 443). The nature and extent of what is, determines what is possible in thrownness. In this, he demonstrates that the grounding given in being is potentially variable. Whilst Dasein cannot alter its own facticity, others can alter facticity for Dasein. The extent of this opportunity I call the “scope” of thrownness. This term I apply to individual Dasein before they are Dasein. “Scope” is that from which thrownness in part comes.
Could “pedagogy” be defined as the deliberate alteration of the facticity of Dasein by the management of scope?
4 The relationship between horizons of disclosure
The way to develop an understanding of horizons of disclosure is to consider possible examples of horizons. Those discussed in the literature include time consciousness, science, mathematics, the law, and that which results in the human beings having an overarching technological perspective in the world.
Human beings have a primordial horizon (which is what Heidegger really means by “horizon”), and we have those other horizons that come later and presumably are in some way built within one or more primordial horizons.
There are two ways to consider this situation. First, as just indicated by starting with the primordial and moving forward in time – this is the originating approach.
Second, by considering Dasein as present-at-hand and accounting for those horizons that are with Dasein by appeal to horizons once held, or currently held. I call this second approach “reductionist” because the horizons to which we appeal are not identical with the horizons used to explain. The prospect of missing components arises, along with questions about “how?” How does Dasein ever get beyond the primordial horizon?
3) Theoretical Background and Review of Literature:
This review is in three sections:
1. Heidegger and education: the application of Heideggerian thought (particularly the core of his thinking about being and truth) to the problems of pedagogy, some work of phenomenologists that may relate to the horizon of disclosure concept, and the prospects for such work
2. Heidegger’s model of truth: this describes a structural and dynamic model, with a consideration of selected aspects of the model
3. Heidegger’s concept of horizons: the relationship of “horizons” to ‘truth’, two useful ideas from Kant, and the importance of Aristotle in the development of Heidegger’s concept.
1 Heidegger and education
There is today significant interest in Heidegger worldwide. Some reasons for this can be discerned. New Heideggerian material in English is being published; new interpretations are appearing; and there are those who seek to tease out the implications of Heideggerian thought in the practical world (Heidegger, 2005; Inwood, 2002b, p.ix; Skirbekk, 1969; Tallis, 2002; Young, 2002). The new interpretation of Being and Time by Stambaugh reads differently from the Macquarrie Robinson translation from its very first sentence (Heidegger, 1996). There is also a developing literature that seeks to relate Heidegger’s writing to his lived life and circumstances. This has provided new perspectives regarding the theory (Caputo, 1993; Wolin, 2001; Wolin, 1993). In addition, the hermeneutic philosophy of science is drawing upon and developing Heidegger’s ideas (Babich, 2002b; Ginev, 2002; Mays, 2002; Toulmin, 2002).
There is a debate about the potential of Heidegger’s work to inform educational thinking and practice (Peters, 2002). “Although Heidegger’s work has influenced scholarship in numerous fields, little to no influence has found its way into education” (Ream & Ream, 2005, p.589).
Heidegger might initially appear to be a strange candidate for the role of educational reformer because he was as an author said “ultraconservative” and was fond of repeating Hölderlin’s maxim “As you begin, so you shall remain” (Wolin, 2001, p.207 & p.206). Gur-Ze’ev notes “… Heidegger makes no effort to contribute to normalizing education or to scientific thinking … nor can he contribute, as some scholars would suggest, to the improvement of schooling” (Gur-Ze'ev, 2002, p.75). Peterson (2005) writes about Heidegger’s authoritarian pedagogy, his autocratic approach to university administration, and the relationship of these things to Weimar Germany.
Cooper argues that Heidegger’s philosophy as a whole can assist our understanding of education. He says that educationalists should be helpfully informed by Heidegger’s “way of looking at the world” and his philosophy as a whole, both as a perspective in itself and also because of the more full understanding of specific ideas that such a perspective may bring (Cooper, 2002, p.47). Cooper focuses on the nature of truth and the status of science, which are relevant to schooling. Hogan elaborates on where to find the potential of Heidegger to inform education. For him it is in Heidegger’s difference from “what the dominant modes and tempers in Western philosophy have furnished for thought and action” (Hogan, 2002, p.211).
There are intellectual disciplines and sectors of education where people have sought to make use of Heidegger’s work. Cooper cites examples of Heidegger’s thought in several disciplines, Lambeir considers information technology in schools, and Thomson considers how Heidegger might provide a “positive vision for the future of higher education” by understanding our educational crisis “ontohistorically” (Cooper, 2002, p.47; Lambeir, 2002; Thomson, 2001). Gur-Ze’ev suggests that the “philosophy of Martin Heidegger is of much relevance for the elaboration of an attempt to open the gate to counter-education as an open possibility” (Gur-Ze'ev, 2002, p.67). Bonnett explores how Heidegger contributes to our understanding of learning and a “full educational relationship between learner and teacher” (Bonnett, 2002, p.230). Bonnett and Morris have attempted to speak directly to teachers about the use of existentialism in practice (Bonnett, 1994; Morris, 1961; Morris, 1966).
There are also papers that take some aspect of Heidegger and relate that to some disciplinary area of education. Examples are relatively common in nursing education (Diekelmann & Ironside, 1998; Van Der Wal, 2001), and there is Irwin’s paper on Heidegger and Nietzsche in relation to values education (Irwin, 2003). There are also specifically curriculum oriented papers, for example there is one that uses Heidegger’s work to draw conclusions about the teaching of English (Pike, 2003) and I have developed a science distance education pedagogy drawing on Heidegger (Shaw, 2004). Greene has related the teaching of literature to Merleau-Ponty, Camus and Heidegger (Greene, 1997). By reading Moby Dick, she says, students can gain self-understanding through the experience of having things revealed or unconcealed. She cites Poetry Language and Thought as supportive of this view (Greene, 1997, pp.172-173). All these papers make use of things Heidegger wrote and probably gain authority from the citation. However, they do not strongly relate curriculum or subject areas to the core of Heidegger’s work. They do not take being/truth and link that whole phenomenon to their curriculum interest. Perhaps those who write about Heidegger and the arts curriculum (widely interpreted) are the exception to this generalisation.
The
latter Heidegger wrote a great deal about art, and he related this to truth and
being in a direct way (Babich, 2002a).
Consequently, those concerned with the arts in education were
led naturally to consider what I have called the “core” of Heidegger’s
thesis. One example is the work of
The core of Heidegger’s work is his concern with Being which he describes as the “matter of thinking” (Young, 2002, p.5) and Being constitutes the “hidden essence of truth” (Heidegger, 1969, p.83). Whilst there is interest in Heidegger’s work in relation to education, there does not appear to be much on the very critical matter of truth and its direct involvement in thinking about education. No one seems to have asked how Heidegger’s ontological concept of truth might be of use in our engagement with contemporary pedagogical concerns.
I have suggested that recent debates in education that draw upon Heidegger are not closely associated with Heideggerian being/truth. As recent commentators said “… further work needs to be done in order to demonstrate the relationship shared by Heidegger’s theory of ontology and learning environments” (Ream & Ream, 2005, p.589).
However, there is some work by “existential phenomenologists” (the term Donald Vandenberg uses to describe himself) that may be heading towards the Heideggerian core. Vandenberg brought into English the work of Continental writers who are concerned with schooling and phenomenology.
Because of their potential relevance to thinking about the development of horizons of disclosure, I want to record two of the contributions by the existentialist phenomenologists: the “being-in-the-law” idea and the existential model of human development.
The idea of “being-in-the-law” is an extension of Heidegger’s terminology into a practical and intellectual discipline. It heralds a discussion about a new horizon. Vandenberg sets out the base concept clearly: “The designation being-in-the-law concerns the externalization of one’s projection in accordance to the space of law in the generic sense, which means into the space disclosed by particular laws that are absolutely just, but to none other” (Vandenberg, 1971, p.200).
“That is, laws do not exist in books, courts or out in social space: they become grounded ontologically only in individual existence through the individual’s projection into the space they define. … He who does not see that the laws are to be ‘obeyed’ needs not legal instruction but an existential conversion from being-in-the-world to being-in-the-law that is not unlike the conversion from being-in-the-world to being in the truth” (Vandenberg, 1971, pp.201-202, who acknowledged his debt to Maihofer).
Kierkegaard and Gardini hypothesis existential “life-phases” based upon events such as conception, birth, pubescence, societal entrance, levelling off, retirement, and dependence. Kierkegaard’s phases are the:
1. Esthetic phase (resolution of crises of experience)
2. Ethical phase (idealism, hedonistic resolution)
3. Teleological phase (synthesis of the earlier phases).
Gardini’s life phases are:
1. Pre natal life
2. Childhood
3. Youth
4. Young adult hood
5. Mature adulthood
6. Old age
7. Senility.
Gardini’s life phases – which, he says, are not clearly separate one from the other in practice - are hypothesised as “ontologically distinct forms of existence”. In this way, he introduces the possibility of developing the concept of Dasein and the possibility of relating horizons (and thus truth) to Dasein in a more comprehensive manner. We might consider the Child-Dasein, Dasein, and Elderly-Dasein, each with different forms or ways of being.
One purpose of Vandenberg’s book Being and Education is to develop a phenomenological account of the development of Dasein through stages (Vandenberg, 1971). Examining stage theories is beyond the scope of the present theses, however the ideas that they relate to are of interest because the notion of pedagogy involves change in the student and we may discover something helpful if we consider ontological and phenomenological accounts of Dasein that relate to change.
My conclusion about Heidegger and education generally is that there is extensive interest in his work and its potential to inform education. However, there is little focus on how the core of Heidegger’s thinking, which is the being/truth concept (that entails the notion of horizon). It is this concept that might be the base of a systematic pedagogy. Some scholars have produced works relevant to aspects of this theme, including the educational phenomenologists. However, I have been unable to identify anyone who has directly addressed the question of Heideggerian truth and pedagogy.
2 Heidegger and truth
Truth, we are inclined to think, is reliable, timeless, consistent, and not altered by circumstances. Plato associated this view of truth with an account of reality, it gave rise to the correspondence and coherence theories of truth, it has been an integral part of scepticism and relativism, and it is implicated in the dichotomies inherent in modern scientific thought (Campbell, 1992, for example, critically details the history of the concept). Significant figures in philosophy have accepted the Platonic conception of truth and Campbell cites them (for example, Kant and Hume, Campbell, 1992, p.299).
Heidegger’s association of truth and being, and his grounding of truth in action, represent a counter tradition that reaches back into Greek times, but which was overshadowed by the Platonic tradition that grounds truth in propositions (Campbell, 1992, p.415).
Heidegger’s account of truth developed over a long period. According to Young, his first account of truth appeared in 1925 (Plato’s Sophist). There was a major restatement in section 44 of Being and Time (disclosedness and the correspondence theory of truth), and there was an “improved restatement” published in 1930 (On the Essence of Truth) and a “further restatement” in 1936 (The Origin of the Work of Art) (Young, 2002, pp.5-6). Towards the end of his life, Heidegger further developed his ideas about truth particularly in The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking (delivered to a conference in 1968, Heidegger, 1993, pp.431-499) and On Time and Being (lecture 1962, and six seminars about that lecture, Heidegger, 1972). Helpful material regarding the earlier period, that is critical to the present thesis, appears in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, pp.177-224 (truth and assertion) and his Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, pp.109-136, (propositional truth and ontic transcendence) (Heidegger, 1962; Heidegger, 1982; Heidegger, 1984). Also, the lecture course of 1923 is a clear account of everydayness and significance which are critical to the present project (Heidegger, 1999).
Truth for Heidegger is a complex constellation that involves four elements:
1. The undisclosed (earth)
2. The disclosed (world in the ontic sense)
3. The fundamental (originating) horizon of disclosure (world in the ontological sense)
4. Man the discloser (based on Young, 2002, p.7).
He acknowledges the correspondence accounts of truth, but says that for these to work there must be a more fundamental form of “truth” (Dreyfus, 2000). The claim is that his concept is more foundational or primal and that all other accounts depend upon his account of truth: “The critical concepts of truth which, since Descartes, start out from truth as certainty are merely variations of the definition of truth as correctness. The essence of truth which is familiar to us – correctness of representation – stands and falls with truth as unconcealment of beings” ("The Origin of the Work of Art" in Heidegger, 1993, p.177).
On the Essence of Truth begins by claiming that truth does not “reside in the proposition” (Heidegger, 1993, p.122). Then “Whence does the presentative statement receive the directive to conform to the object and to accord by way of correctness?” (Heidegger, 1993, p.123). Heidegger’s answer is that previously there must have been an “open space”, a horizon of disclosure, a context that has revealed itself, and there has been a “pregiving” which prevails in the place and binds every
presenting. “To free oneself for a binding directedness is possible only by being free for what is opened up in an open region’. Heidegger claims that this means “the essence of truth is freedom” and that he is the first person to comprehend this (Heidegger, 1993, p.123).
In The Origin of the Work of Art, “truth means the essence of the true” and we must “come to know what must have happened in order to be compelled to say the essence of truth in the word ‘unconcealment’” (Heidegger, 1993, p.176). However, this time he sets out the account without recourse to “freedom”. Instead the emphasis is on beings and “Unconcealment (truth) is neither an attribute of matters in the sense of beings, nor one of proposition” (Heidegger, 1993, p.179).
Heidegger’s term Ereignis (“event” in German) is usually translated as “appropriation” and this has been a part of the later emphasis in his work. An analysis of the concept of appropriation by Engels-Schwarzpaul teased out how Ereignis relates to culture and art (Engels-Schwarzpaul, 2003). The notion that our world is largely unknown by us, only partially under our control, and something that creates us, may have implications for a new concept of pedagogy.
The conclusion here is that Heidegger’s concept of truth is distinctive and that scholars (including Heidegger himself) have not greatly altered its original conception. There has been radical development of some aspects of that original concept.
3 Heidegger’s concept of horizons
This section begins by considering how Heidegger’s concept of horizons relates to the work of Aristotle and Kant. Then, it focuses on how Heidegger’s concept of horizons sits within his concept of truth/Dasein.
The influence of theorists on Heidegger is a topic in itself. Because, characteristically, Heidegger worked on his own unique problems, he tends to appropriate their work for his own ends, as opposed to his contributing to their problematics. “Seen through Heidegger’s eyes Kant and Aristotle are as much in Heidegger’s debt as he is in theirs” (Inwood, 2000, p.120). Hence, comparisons between Heidegger and other theorists must be determined with this in mind. The present discussion tries to bring forward material that Heidegger must have been aware of, and which has direct relevance to his concept of horizons.
Aristotle is important in four ways that are set out below - some are broad discussions and some are specific points that relate to horizonal truth.
First, Aristotle was important because Heidegger was consciously moving away from an aspect of Aristotle’s metaphysics. Book VII of the Metaphysics is a critical text for this first encounter with Aristotle. This book, in its usual interpretation, renders the question of the Being of a being as a question about that being’s essence. This is the particular interpretation of the “meaning of ousia that became decisive historically”(Marx, 1971, p.3).
There are several different meanings of the Greek ousia. Heidegger notes in Being and Time that ousia was the Greek name for Sein as determined by Zeit (Section 25, including the footnote in Heidegger, 1962, pp.46-47). This meaning is before the “ontological clue” gets worked out and it becomes possible to grasp the meaning of being in a more “radical” fashion (Heidegger, 1962, p.47). Hence, with the benefit of this working out, Heidegger is concerned with that meaning of ousia that he lists as the third account of “thingness” or “whatness”. This is the “one that is most used: essentia” (Heidegger, 1982, p.86). This is the essence of a being if we think of the being in its actuality. There are many names for being as an actuality. The different names all draw upon different aspects of this being and they include “whatness, Wesen, essence, definitio (circumscription, definition), forma (shape, figure, aspect, look), (and) natura (origin)” (slightly recast, from Heidegger, 1982, p.86).
The sense of the essence of man in Aristotle was close to the foundation of the tradition of thought that Heidegger sought to overcome. In his discussion of Heidegger’s theory of being, Marx chose to consider Aristotle as the departure point for the Western tradition because of the significance of Aristotle’s “doctrine of the category of substance” (translator's introduction to Marx, 1971, p.xvii). The special place of Aristotle in the tradition is referred to by Heidegger himself when he recalled his early reflections on ousia as critical to the issue of being and time “as he saw it from the very beginning” (Richardson quoted in Marx, 1971, p.xviii).
Perhaps the easiest way to explain what Heidegger is getting at is to consider this account: “Each being, as a being, can be questioned in a twofold way as to what it is and whether it is. To each being the what-question and the whether-question apply. At first we do not know why this is so. In the philosophical tradition it is taken as self-evident. Everyone has this insight” (Heidegger, 1982, p.88).
Heidegger wants us to focus on the idea that it is potentiality (whether it is), as opposed to its nature or form, that is more original or founding notion. This sense of essence has been largely overlooked since Aristotle, although Kant did a little better, according to Heidegger (1982, p.89).
This perspective is crucial for it sets up the concrete possibility of horizons. I refer to what turns out to be the necessity of the structural feature ‘horizon’ in the model of being and truth that is ultimately established.
What must be present if something is to be present as a potentiality as opposed to there being only nothingness? The answer in the Heideggerian model is an horizon. Thus, we identify one place in the model of truth that relates directly to the concept of potentiality that is an integral part of Dasein; and it relates directly to the pedagogical question that is at the heart of the present thesis proposal.
In summary: whatness and the way of being (whether it is) are now distinct. An horizon establishes and defines the potentiality, which is the way of being. Heidegger made clear the central importance of potentiality: “As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities” (Heidegger, 1962, p.185) and he might have added “from within horizons”.
The second way that Aristotle is important to Heidegger relates to Heidegger’s usual procedural approach to the concept of truth: Heidegger considers the inadequacies of truth as correspondence and then proceeds to his more profound, ontological account of truth. Heidegger refers to Aristotle’s account of truth in propositions (or understanding, truth being in the intellect as opposed to being in things) as the “external manner” or the “naïve and customary interpretation” of truth (Heidegger, 1982, p.214).
Dahlstrom says “Heidegger is quick to draw attention to the fact that Aristotle defines assertions in terms of truth rather than vice versa, since it calls into question of the propriety of construing him as the ‘originator’ of the logical prejudice” (Dahlstrom, 2001, p.181). Hence, according to both Aristotle and Heidegger, a sentence is not the site of truth, but rather the truth is the site of the sentence. In other words, that an assertion is true, and what an assertion means, can only be clear to a student if the student already holds an understanding of what truth entails. We proceed from here to see that such an understanding of what “truth entails”, is the kind of understanding that we may better describe as the presence of many truths within a present horizon. This debate, about the relationship between apophanitic and hermeneutic truth, is central to the present thesis. It also takes us to the question of whether or not an horizon itself should be described as a form of “understanding”.
However, the account I have given, which is what Heidegger broadly intends, is, according to Dahlstrom, based on Aristotle’s work on logic, as it appears in De interpretatione, Aristotle’s second book on logic. The second book is actually about grammar and logos apophantikos itself. It is not about being or the human foundation of logos apophantikos. Aristotle is setting out a logic of grammar by eliminating categories of utterance and leaving for examination those propositions, both in general and particular examples (universal subject, individual subject), that have a form that may be true or not true. His examples include things like “Socrates is not white” and “every man is white”. I have been unable to find anything in the second book of logic that actually relates propositions sufficiently to ontological understanding in the way that Heidegger requires. Dahlstrom discusses this from many sides, and he quotes Heidegger in different works, but nowhere does he quote a specific set of words from De interpretation.
A third entrance of Aristotle into the debate about horizons is through his work on categories. Heidegger considers two different sets of issues around the notion of categories: transcendence, and the classification that gives intellectual disciplines. I will consider them in that order.
Being and Time: “The 'universality' of Being 'transcends' any universality of genus. In medieval ontology 'Being' is designated as a 'transcendens'. Aristotle himself knew the unity of this transcendental 'universal' as a unity of analogy in contrast to the multiplicity of the highest generic concepts applicable to things.” (Heidegger, 1962, p.22).
This is a use of Aristotle by Heidegger in relation to categories. It simply puts a “higher”, transcendental layer above genus, species, subspecies, individual. He acknowledges this is not more than an “analogy”. What that layer might be is not a simple question.
This work on categories is a part of a programme whereby Heidegger had “the issues of transcendental logic in his sights” (Dahlstrom, 2001, p.5). A theory of categories, the most general way in which objects can be determined, was an early concern for Heidegger and he approached the subject by considering the fundamental basis of the discipline of logic (Dahlstrom, 2001, p.5). Philipse calls this the “transcendental strategy” of Sein und Zeit (Philipse, 2001, p.390). Heidegger attempts to reconstruct our understanding of human existence by reconstructing the categories that are derived from the domains of artefacts and of physics. The new categories, the “existentialia” are to “destroy” the existing categories by showing their limitations (Philipse, 2001, p.390).
Heidegger’s work on the concept of transcendence and categories relates directly to work on horizons in the thesis proposed. We are concerned to establish the most original of horizons as the starting point towards establishing derived horizons. We can only understand physics if we can understand that upon which the understanding of physics is founded.
The further use of Aristotle by Heidegger in relation to categories is his drawing upon epistemological categories, particularly concerning the scope of what human beings can know. This relates to the “transcendental” programme referred to above, but it comes from Aristotle’s work in other places, and it has developed in the history of philosophy as a separate matter.
Consider: “It is of great importance for the understanding of ‘the other meaning of Being and essence’ in Heidegger to emphasize that Aristotle comprehended the ‘creative,’ the ‘poetic,’ element in the occurrences of physis and technē as thus bound up with the demonstrated constraint of necessity” (Marx, 1971, p.33). Physis and techne are “nature” and the “aided bring fourth … to natures blossoming” according to Young (2002, p.40).
The key text is: “The states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e. art (techne), scientific knowledge (episteme), practical wisdom (phronesis), philosophic wisdom (sophia), intuitive reason (nous); we do not include judgement and opinion because in these we may be mistaken” (Greek added to Aristotle, 1990, 1139b15).
Whilst there is some ambivalence in Aristotle's use of the terms (Parry, 2003), these categories are well represented today as the categories of intellectual disciplines, the faculties of universities, in the funding of scholarship, and as the subjects (realms of knowledge) taught in schools. Of course they are in particular cases debated, but there is wide acceptance that there should be categories in this way (see, for example, Greek notions and various curriculum reviews considered in Hirst, 1972).
The aspect of the pedagogical question that relates to this work is: how do epistemological categories relate to horizons of disclosure? The proposed thesis cannot avoid that question.
There is a fourth way that Aristotle is important to Heidegger’s account of horizons. It relates to Aristotle’s “internal” or “inside” “truth thesis” (Heidegger, 1982, pp.214-215). Aristotle’s second entrance to the debate, as set out above, is the “external manner” in which Aristotle’s thesis on truth may be taken (Heidegger, 1982, p.214).
“But the definition of being-true as unveiling, making manifest, is not an arbitrary, private invention of mine; it only gives expression to the understanding of the phenomenon of truth, as the Greeks already understood it in pre-scientific as well as philosophical understanding, even if not in every respect in an originally explicit way” (Heidegger, 1982, p.215). This statement invites controversy.
He follows this controversial statement with a discussion of the privative “aletheuein” and a reference to Aristotle. Then: “For the Greeks truth means: to take out of concealment, uncovering, unveiling. To be sure the Greeks’ interpretation of this phenomenon was not successful in every respect” (Heidegger, 1982, p.215). The effect of this is to bring together truth and being, and ultimately horizon and being. This is the heart of his account of horizonal truth: and thus, it is relevant to the present thesis.
In summary, the significance of Aristotle for Heidegger’s work on horizons is:
1. By considering Aristotle, Heidegger arrived at the critical distinction that led to his notion of horizon
2. Aristotle provided a base for Heidegger’s discussion of correspondence theories of truth
3. Aristotle provided material that related to truth as disclosure
4. Aristotle set out the categories that considerably influenced the structure of our intellectual disciplines (and hence one possible account of horizons).
However, as far as I can see at this moment, Aristotle himself did not develop any notion of horizon akin to that which Heidegger subsequently developed.
Kant, in contrast to Aristotle, did develop horizonal concepts. He used a notion of horizon in his work on both logic and human understanding.
Kant’s work on the primacy of practical reason influenced Heidegger: “Heidegger takes seriously Kant’s doctrine of the primacy of practical reason – more seriously, perhaps, than Kant did” (Inwood, 2000, p.87).
Kant’s horizonal concepts are distinct from those of Heidegger in critical regards – they are not ontological. As Heidegger noted about one of the contrasts: “It is worth to note that in Kant reality and possibility belong to different classes of categories, quality and modality” (Heidegger, 1982, p.89).
However, here I want to draw attention to two features of Kant’s work that are also features in Heidegger’s concept of horizons:
1. The use of geographical imagery as a general approach to reality, reasoning, and cognition in Kant’s case and ontology in Heidegger’s case
2. The idea that the a priori can in some way be used to indicate the boundaries of horizons when you use geographical imagery.
Kant’s uses geographical imagery and metaphors to sketch his account of rationality. In particular, he uses such images to show the bounds that apply to forms of rationality. We see the explicit reference to a geographical metaphor in Kant’s aside about Hume, and also in the sphere concept of rationality. The sphere model establishes horizons, although Kant does not in the key paragraph use the word “horizon”. The outside of the sphere is the horizon. Perhaps we understand what Kant means simply by analogy with the terrestrial horizon of the trampers in the hills or by thinking of children’s toys. Kant puts before us a concrete model of the structure of our apparatus of cognition and/or reasoning.
“The illustrious David Hume was one of these geographers of human reason. He supposed that he had adequately disposed of all those questions by relegating them outside human reason's horizon - a horizon which he was yet unable to determine”. (Kant, 1996, p.702, A 760)
The comment on Hume is also of interest in the context of the thesis proposed, because it raises the example of “causation” in a horizonal model, and thereby takes us back to Heidegger’s consideration of the truth of logic, and to debate on the truth of science (this is one aspect of the "science wars" see for example Fjelland, 2002).
The sphere model: “Our reason is by no means a plane spread out indeterminably far, whose limits one cognizes only in a general way. It must, rather, be compared to a sphere whose radius one can find from the curvature of the arc on its surface (i.e., from the nature of synthetic a priori propositions), from which in turn one can reliably indicate also the sphere's content and boundary. Outside this sphere (the realm of experience) nothing is an object for teason (sic); indeed, there even (are) questions about such supposed objects concern only subjective principles of a thoroughgoing determination of what relations can occur, within this sphere, among the concepts of understanding” (Kant, 1996, pp.703-704, A 762) .
The word “horizon” is used in the following description of the concept of the sphere, although “purview” would have served just as well; however in this text the important concept of “boundary” appears and we have “bounds of its domain”. The domain notion contrasts with Heidegger’s “field”. Kant: “ … determining for itself the bounds of its use, and knowing what may lie inside or outside its entire sphere; for this task requires precisely those deep inquiries that we have performed. But if the understanding cannot distinguish whether or not certain questions lie within its horizon, then it can never be sure of its claims and its possessions; rather, it must then count on receiving a multitude of embarrassing rebukes when (as is unavoidable) it keeps overstepping the bounds of its domain and strays into delusion and deception” (Kant, 1996, p.305, A 238).
Kant makes it clear that geographic imagery applies to all the “objects of cognition”: “The sum of all possible objects for our cognition seems to us [similarly] to be a level surface; and this surface has its seeming horizon” (Kant, 1996, p.702, A 760).
A potentially significant point for the present thesis about Kant’s structural model is that he believes that it is possible to elaborate features of the model by working out what is a priori. This is allegedly a common method of working for both Heidegger and Kant; however exactly what they mean by “a priori” and what they are applying the method to, needs further explication.
Weatherston (1988) says that both Kant and Heidegger are on the same ontological trail: “… like Kant, Heidegger is seeking the role of a priori knowledge in our experience of beings. The a priori must make beings accessible to us without yet distorting or falsifying them” (Introduction in Weatherston, 1988). Weatherston’s expression “in our experience of beings” must cause us to pause. As I mentioned above, Heidegger begins with his own questions, and it is not “the role” of the a priori that we see but two different roles in two different models.
For all that, it is still a worthwhile thought that the phenomenological or ontological investigation of the a priori may assist us to say more about horizons in the present thesis.
In summary, Kant produces for the present thesis proposal an hypothesis: that all talk about horizons is talk about geographic models. Accordingly, he raises the general problematic of models, and the more specific problematic of the nature of structural models of truth (that include horizons) as developed as a part of the present thesis proposal. The second thing Kant provides to the discussion of horizons is the idea that we can ascertain the extent of planes or horizons by considering the a priori.
How does the notion of the horizon lie within the concept of truth? We now provide some initial thoughts on that complex question which requires that we consider Heidegger’s Care Structure.
“The Horizon” is central in Husserl and Heidegger, so it has been claimed (Taylor, 1990). Dahlberg says Heidegger’s notion of horizon “closely approximates” a feature in Husserl’s Ideas II (Dahlstrom, 2001, p.163). Ihde notes the central role of ‘horizon’ in Heidegger and observes that the “limits of early phenomenology are located in the phenomenon of the horizon” (Ihde, 1974, p.19).
It is necessary to build up Heidegger’s account of horizons by considering discussions that involve horizons, but which do not explicitly focus on horizons. Heidegger did not write a book entitled “Horizons”, nor have I found a section of a book with a similar title. Gogel observed how “horizon”, which he says constitutes the ground of Heidegger’s entire philosophical endeavour, is implicit (meaning, not sufficiently explicit consistently throughout the work) in Heidegger’s writing (Gogel, 1987).
Heidegger’s most compelling direct account of the notion of the horizon in my opinion comes from his 1923 summer semester lectures (Heidegger, 1999) and the same material is largely in Sein und Zeit that was published in 1927 (there were significant alterations before the 7th edition which is translated as Heidegger, 1962). Heidegger begins a lecture course in 1927 by saying this is a “new elaboration” of parts of Sein und Zeit , and some of these parts are relevant to our present discussion (footnote to page 1 and Translator's Preface page xi, Heidegger, 1982). Dahlstrom observed that particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, Heidegger frequently changed is mind about concepts that relate to the ‘horizon of disclosure’ (Dahlstrom, 2001).
The focus for the present thesis is the notion of ‘horizon’ situated in the “core” of his theory (being/truth). Below, I briefly summarise the “core” to locate the role of “horizons”.
The term “equiprimordial” describes a particular temporal situation and relationships. As Heidegger sets it out in Being and Time: “… the fact that something primordial is underivable does not rule out the possibility that a multiplicity of characteristics of Being may be constitutive for it. If these show themselves, then existentially they are equiprimordial. The phenomenon of the equiprimordiality of constitutive items has often been disregarded in ontology, because of a methodologically unrestrained tendency to derive everything and anything from some simple 'primal ground'” (Heidegger, 1962, p.170). Inwood says “equiprimordial” means “equally original” which is a simplification because it leaves out the relationship aspect although this does reappear when he considers examples (Inwood, 2000, p.140).
The notion of ‘equiprimordiality’ serves duty in relation to many things. Kisiel records examples: “…the equiprimordial constellation of involvement with the world and self through affective disposition, understanding, and discourse …” (Kisiel, 1993, p.317); “… although care and concern are equiprimordial, concern in some sense has its origin in care, (Kisiel, 1993, p.385).
One set of things that are equiprimordial are those that fundamentally constitute the Dasein. These include an understanding of time, an understanding of spatiality, and even an understanding of tools – but all without any particular contexts or associations. These are the “structural” features of Dasein, and Inwood groups them under the heading “The A Priori” which follows Heidegger’s terminology and differs from Kant (Inwood, 2000, p.38). Young takes as his text for this point On the question of being, which emphasises how these a priori things involve presence : “Presence is that which ‘prevails … in an authoritative manner’” (Heidegger, 1998, p.312; Young, 2002, p.11). “… being in the small ‘b’ sense is just a synonym for that which, in discussing truth, Heidegger refers to as an (fundamental) horizon of disclosure and as ‘world’ in the ontological sense” (Young, 2002, p.11). Elsewhere, Heidegger says the essence of a being is ‘presence’ or ‘presencing’, the making of things noticeable, or capable of being of concern (Young, 2002, p.10).
For Dasein, three horizons are equiprimordial and Heidegger describes them from two perspectives: from the care structure, and from an account of temporality.
“Care” is a concept that Heidegger uses to overarch three equiprimordial ontological aspects of Dasein’s being. He says: “Care, as a primordial structural totality, lies 'before' ["vor"] every factical 'attitude' and 'situation' of Dasein, and it does so existentially a priori; this means that it always lies in them” (Heidegger, 1962, p.238). “When fully conceived, the care-structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood” (Heidegger, 1962, p.370).
Each aspect has its own horizon and accordingly Dasein is constituted of three fundamental horizons. Finitude is crucial in all of these. Only a finite being has horizons. The Care Structure entails that Dasein is:
1. Being ahead of itself – involving the future and always “up to something” (for the sake of oneself)
2. Being already in the world – the result of thrownness (having to face up to)
3. Alongside entities (working with what is there) (Dreyfus, 1991, pp.238-245; Inwood, 1997, pp.51-52)
From the perspective of temporality, the three horizons give Dasein:
1. The future as opportunities or potentialities
2. The past as what is significant from the past and relevant to the future
3. The present as equipment or objects, that can be of use in the pursuit of the opportunities.
Inwood says the horizons considered from the point-of-view of temporality provide the boundaries of “fields”: “Each of these ecstasies is a ‘horizon’ or rather a field bounded by a horizon. Each is defined by one of three aspects of purposive human activity, and this is its ‘horizonal’ schema or pattern.” (Inwood, 1997, p.85). Thomas describes this as Heidegger’s “phenomenological treatment” of temporality (Thomas, 1990).
Dahlstrom sets out his account of these things in two places (Dahlstrom, 2001, pp.193-195 and pp.333-338). He approaches the topic from a consideration of the distinction between the apophanitic As-structure and the hermeneutic As-structure, which draws ultimately on Aristotle. Dahlstrom notes, “…timeliness provides the horizon for genuine care as a whole” (p.334) and thereby the “sense” of genuine human existence (p.334). At this point, the distinction between ontic and ontological confronts us, and there is a further level of complication for there appears to be a category between ontic and ontological. This application document is not the place to pursue this argument further. It is, however, important to the thesis because there is potential in every conclusion about how the ecstasis comes into being to inform debate about how further horizons appear.
The next part of the Care Structure that is significant for the present project is that it does not relate just to Dasein’s fundamental, original way of being in the world. It relates to “theory” and thus by implication to the acquisition of theory. Heidegger says: “So this phenomenon (Care) by no means expresses a priority of the 'practical' attitude over the theoretical. When we ascertain something present-at-hand by merely beholding it, this activity has the character of care just as much as does a 'political action' or taking a rest and enjoying oneself. 'Theory' and 'practice' are possibilities of Being for an entity whose Being must be defined as "care" (Heidegger, 1962, p.238). We are again left with the question of how Dasein builds one horizon upon (perhaps, “under”, is better) another. We are also left with some caution about “theory” in this context.
What is the conclusion of this section of the literature review regarding horizons?
1. I have yet to identify a horizonal concept in Aristotle although several of Aristotle’s notions are critical to the development of Heidegger’s concept of horizonal truth
2. There are distinct horizonal concepts in Kant and Husserl
3. Kant’s concept produces for us the thought that horizonal concepts are geographic models
4. The notion of an horizon is an integral and necessary part of Heidegger’s concept of truth. This shows in several aspects of the discussion about Dasein, including the Care Structure of Dasein.
Whatever Dasein does is necessarily done within an horizon. How this relates to Heidegger’s configuration of truth is reasonably clear. What Heidegger does not adequately make clear, nor anyone else so far as I can discover, is how the initial set of horizons, grounded as they are in temporality, lead on to further horizons. Things appear “as” something. What is the student’s range of possible “as’s”? Some commentators have remarked on how undeveloped but central the notion of horizon is in Heidegger’s account of being/truth. Dahlstrom is the theorist who comes closest to a sustained revision of Heidegger’s theory of truth and he considers the origin of the horizon concept. One hypothesis is that there are no further horizons beyond the founding and grounding set.
However, Young, Dahlstrom, and the Continental phenomenologists appear to believe in a multiplicity of horizons. How does Dasein move from the horizons associated with temporality to other horizons? This is the pedagogical question, and it is the subject of the present thesis.
A quote from Being and Time sets up the problematic of the present thesis in a manner different from that just recorded. The quote is about the relationship between horizons and Heidegger is telling us to be cautious because we might discover ever more primordial or universal horizons.
“In any investigation in this field, where 'the thing itself is deeply veiled' one must take pains not to overestimate the results. For in such an inquiry one is constantly compelled to face the possibility of disclosing an even more primordial and more universal horizon …” (Heidegger, 1962, p.49).
The present thesis is about going in the other direction. Instead of asking about more primordial horizons (lower), the thesis is asking about less primordial horizons (higher) - whether they exist and their acquisition.
4) Potential Questions to guide Inquiry/Research:
Projects such as that envisaged here are distinctly, and characteristically, organic – they grow and change form as ideas emerge. As a strategy for advancing the project, I could consider the following questions:
1. Why is work within the discipline of the philosophy of education on truth and horizons worthwhile?
2. What account can I give of horizonal structures within Heidegger’s concept of truth?
3. Can I identify distinct examples of horizons in both Heidegger’s work and elsewhere? How do examples compare?
4. Is it possible to provide an account of significance for a thematic horizon?
5. What account can I give of something occurring within an horizon?
6. How does Heidegger’s notion of ‘significance’ relate to specific examples beyond those that he provides?
7. Is it possible to usefully classify horizons of disclosure and thus make work on them simpler?
8. Can the example of altered historical horizons related to art inform a study about the presencing of the individual Dasein?
9. Is it possible to identify some horizons as malleable by pedagogy?
5) Methodology:
Both Wittgenstein and Heidegger emphasise the need for each student to proceed with their own thinking in an independent manner. This may be what distinguishes a thesis in the discipline of philosophy as opposed to other intellectual disciplines. The method proposed is that of philosophical analysis, which entails a close reading of texts, and careful analysis of words and sentences.
The methodology proposed is consistent with Heidegger who described his approach to other philosophers as interpretation or Destruktion (Inwood, 2000, p.57). The decision to proceed in this way is unrelated to the work being about Heidegger: in relation to methodology, we draw upon Heidegger’s views about authenticity and thinking. Accordingly, the thesis will proceed as Heidegger proceeded. The meaning of this was captured by Inwood when he defended Heidegger against a book The Jargon of Authenticity (Adorno, 1973): “… we should treat Heidegger as he treated Aristotle, Descartes, or Kant, interpreting and disentangling his work, using it as a basis for new thoughts of our own”(Inwood, 2000, p.57). Grierson brought attention to this thought by using the expression “heeding Heidegger’s way” (Grierson, 2003). We must heed Heidegger, not adopt, or apply, his ideas.