North American Philosophical Publications The Ontological Difference Author(s): Graeme Nicholson Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 357-374 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American Philosophical Publications Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009875 . Accessed: 27/06/2014 12:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. University of Illinois Press and North American Philosophical Publications are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Philosophical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions American Philosophical Quarterly Volume 33, Number 4, October 1996 THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE Graeme Nicholson X he ontological difference is the differ? ence between what there is and the being of what there is, the difference between beings and being ? on one side, all that exists, on the other, the very existence of what exists. Perhaps the reader has already noticed in reading philosophical texts that the term "being" or "existence" sometimes refers to one side of this distinction and sometimes to the other side. It is certainly an ambiguity that has impeded our under? standing of the term "being." Martin Heidegger coined the term "ontological difference" to refer to this ? in his termi? nology, the difference between Seiendes and Sein. It would be useful here to survey all his treatments, and yet it will be even more useful to explore the matter philo? sophically, scrutinize the reasons for dif? ferentiating beings from being, state that difference in our own terms in English, and see what consequences follow from it. As a beginning, I'll select a good text from Heidegger on this question ? what seems to have been his first treatment of the on? tological difference, in 1927 ? and see what it means in philosophical terms. Then, in Part II of the paper, I'll try to show why Heidegger's doctrine is true. I In the summer semester of 1927, Heideg? ger gave the lectures at Marburg Univer? sity that we know as The Basic Problems of Phenomenology} After the historical treatment of many questions about being in Part One, he proposes to study "the gen? eral structure of being" in Part Two. The work concludes with a treatment of our ex perience of beings, Seiendes, making the claim that we could not encounter them as such, as beings, if we were not guided by an understanding of being, a Seinsverstaend nis (see pp. 452 ff.; e. t. 318 ff.) That is the way this text introduces the ontological dif? ference: it is to make itself known within each person's awareness of self as a human being, and within our awareness of every? thing else too. The self, the others, the things of the environment ? all of them are understood as beings, and that aware? ness depends upon our guiding under? standing of being. Since our encounter with all these beings is achieved only under the guidance of our understanding of be? ing, the latter cannot have been derived from those encounters or those beings. It cannot be seen, then, in any way as a body of empirical information. But the term "ontological difference" should not really be used for the everyday awareness we have of beings and of being. In life as we live it, says Heidegger, we comprehend only the original and latent form of the ontological difference (p. 454 / e. t., p. 319 f.) We are not generally aware of the difference between being and beings with any degree of clarity. To distinguish explicitly between them involves a philo? sophical effort, yet where thinkers have aimed at the difference, they usually treated being itself as if it were just another being. In these pages, Heidegger cites the case of Tha?es, reported by the tradition as holding that all things were water. In Heidegger's account, Tha?es wanted to know by virtue of what it was that each entity could be said to be ? that is to say, 357 This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 358 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY he was seeking to determine the being of beings. But Tha?es' answer, says Heideg? ger, was not only wrong in detail, but in type: he attributed this power to another entity, water. And in this his successors did not always do better. Heidegger intends to show us that the philosophical labor of dif? ferentiating explicitly between being and beings is precarious and subtle. A natural inclination leads our thinking always to take what it thinks as something that is. It is hard then for us to think of being without supposing that being, too, is something that is, a being, an entity. In its latent form, the ontological difference belongs more to our being than to our awareness ? that is, this difference "has the character of Dasein": it is there (ist da), but it is not grasped or ex? plicated or "carried out" by us (p. 454/ e. t., pp. 319 f.). It is present in our being inso? far as we are. But it is not that it escapes all notice! Later on in the paper, I shall try to show in what way it is discerned in our daily life. To follow up Heidegger's claim, my first step will be to look at a couple of major works from the Western philosophical tra? dition, to see if the successors of Tha?es re? ally did run into difficulties over this matter. We can begin with Aristotle, because the grammar of his Greek phrases is close enough to Heidegger's that our question can be transposed onto his text without much difficulty. One of the central con? cerns of his Metaphysics is to investigate being. Both Books Gamma and Zeta make that clear enough in their opening lines: they propose an investigation of the "principles" or the "highest causes" or the "elements" of being. All English transla? tions to my knowledge agree in using the word "being" here, e. g., in Gamma, Ch. 1., and I do not dissent, but the original text reads to on. That is a neuter participle pre? ceded by an article, and it signifies "that which is." If those two words had stood alone, Aristotle would have been propos? ing to investigate, not just one narrow seg? ment of beings or entities, as biology does in confining itself to living beings, for in stance, but all of them, anything and every? thing that in any way is. It would be a study of Seiendes, very, very general, to be sure. But in fact Aristotle's phrase has a supplement: he wants to study to on he on, to on insofar as it is. That makes it clear that we are to bring into view, beyond that which is, the very being of that which is. That does justify the usual translation, "be? ing as being" or "being qua being." In Gamma, Ch. 1., Aristotle is differentiating his study from the special sciences, and the ones he mentions in particular are the mathematical sciences. His study will treat universally of being qua being, to on he on, whereas the special sciences "cut off a part of being and investigate an attribute of this part." One might be tempted to read this as claiming that the special sciences treat only some subdivision of entities whereas metaphysics deals with all of them, but that reading would be mistaken. The "cutting off" that is committed by mathematics but not by metaphysics does not effect a parti? tion among entities, dividing group from group; it performs a cutting within being. Metaphysics is universal, not because it treats every entity, but because it considers every dimension of being. Mathematics, for example, ignores the materiality of physical things, but metaphysics does not. That doesn't mean that mathematics is ne? glecting some things or entities, but rather that it is ignoring one element in the con? stitution of physical things. So it is "cutting off a part of [their] being." On the other hand, there is a trouble? some difficulty in Gamma, Ch. 1. This chapter also uses a plural term, saying that metaphysics will seek the causes and prin? ciples of ta onta (1003 a 29; the term recurs in Ch. 2., at 1003 b 15-16). Translators are forced to render this as "things" or "exist? ing things." So we may suppose that the singular term to on did mean "that which is" after all. How are we to understand to on and ta onta together? My remarks are not offered as a critique of Aristotle or his translators. Rather, I am saying that the text of Aristotle requires the reader to engage in an implicit inter This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE / 359 pretation of to on: to read it first of all as a participial phrase, "that which is," a phrase that can have a plural, but then at points to go beyond the participial meaning and read it as "being qua being," for which there can be no plural. I can also quote texts that require as it were the very opposite maneuver of inter? pretation, texts in which we have an infini? tive verb, or a nominalized infinitive, like to einai or esse or das Sein, but which we are obliged to interpret as "that which is," das Seiende, to on, ens, the participial sense. I can adduce a case from Hegel's Logic. I'll cite the shorter Encyclopedia Logic here though I could cite the Science of Logic equally well to the same effect. In Para. 84, Hegel is treating das Sein. We know that this means "being" rather than "that which is" because of its abstractness ("Being can? not be felt, it cannot be directly perceived. ."2 ), nor is that interpretation disturbed by the famous dialectical maneuvre of Para. 87 that identifies being with nothing. But next Hegel goes on to claim that the unity of being and nothing, the "truth" of both of them, is becoming, das Werden (."..being is the passing into nothing, and nothing is the passing into being. .," p. 144). Here I am constrained to point out that it is Seiendes, not Sein (that which is, rather than being) that is the subject of Werden. It is not being that becomes noth? ingness. It is the acorn, a being, that be? comes an oak, whereby the acorn loses the being that it had (to be an acorn) and whereby that which had not yet been, the oak, now has being or is now in being. My claim is not that Hegel was mistaken, only that his point was not stated com? pletely, not specifying the entity, the Seien? des, which the reader is obliged to supply in the interpretation as the subject of Wer? den, but which the inattentive reader might forget, supposing that it is being that be? comes nothing or nothing that becomes be? ing. Obviously there is more to say about Aristotle and Hegel both. These have not been intended as authoritative critiques, only as indicating that after their work is done, we are still called upon to inquire into the difference, and the relation, be? tween being and beings. It was not until the time of Heidegger that this difference came to direct expression, and even then not in complete clarity in the text of Being and Time. And while he did give it a direct expression in several of the works that fol? lowed Being and Time, I believe that the point has not made a sufficient impression upon the philosophical world to this very day. Here a word on grammar. There are times when we focus our attention upon the activity that a given verb signifies. In English, we can use the infinitive for this: "It's fun to sing," "It's easy to read," or we can form a gerund, a verbal noun, from the participle: "Singing is fun," "Reading is easy." But the German language tends to form gerunds from its infinitives such as singen and lesen. Our phrases would read in German: das Singen macht Spass, das Lesen ist leicht. On the other hand, when German participles become nominalized, they become inflected, and they refer no longer to the activities but to the agents: der Singende, die Singende, das Singende: the one who sings, masculine, feminine, or neuter. Now in English, "to be" is an infinitive and "being" is a participle. The German infinitive is sein and the participle is seiend. German writers are following the tendency of their language when they form a verbal noun, a gerund, out of their infinitive, thus: das Sein. And when they nominalize the participle they refer so to speak to any? thing that engages in sein, to anything which is, das Seiende, plural die Seienden. In English translations from German, we have generally used gerunds of a particip? ial base to translate gerunds that had an infinitive base in the original. Thus we ren? der das Verstehen as "understanding," das Denken as "thinking," and so on. In ac? cord with that practice, then, when the German has das Sein, we write "being." But when the German writes das Seiende, we still have "being"! Except that now we add articles, definite or indefinite, to signify that we do not intend the activity or event This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 360 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY of being but the subject of it: the being, a being, something that is. The ontological difference is not very clearly signified in the English language, then, with its double use of "being." Comprehending whatever in any way is under the term das Seiende, Heidegger's philosophical claim is that we could not dis? cern or recognize it unless we had an un? derstanding of what it is to be, an understanding of das Sein, ein Seinsver staendnis. That is like saying that we couldn't discern or recognize somebody as a speaker if we had no idea what speaking was, what it is to speak, or recognize some? body as a hunter if we had no idea about hunting. That is an ancient Socratic point. Could anyone dispute it? It could happen, I suppose, that someone would concede the point when it is a matter of speaking or hunting, but argue that the point does not carry over, as Heidegger thinks, to the case of being. It is exactly that question that will concern us for the remainder of this paper: is Heidegger right that we need a Seinsver staendnis in order to recognize Seiendes, beings? Of course, someone might raise a suspi? cion even about our "Socratic" cases, speaking, hunting, and so on, arguing that we must beware the danger of a "Platonic" elaboration of the point. That is, the person might concede that, in some sense, a con? cept of hunting was needed if we were to discriminate hunters, the same for speak? ing, and so on, but that this gave no warrant for positing a form of Hunting, a form of Speaking, and so on, existing separately from the instances, and separately from the mind. But to this there is a ready reply. No matter how the cases of hunting, speaking, and so on, became elaborated, and no mat? ter what suspicion or nominalism or Ock ham's razor you decided to employ there, the present case is completely different. In the case of being, a "Platonic" elaboration is completely impossible! That is another way of expressing Heidegger's point. If there were some form, or some "Being," existing separately from beings, that would turn being into a being, ein Seiendes: it would be something else in existence, thereby violating the ontological difference! In this respect, there is something utterly unique about being. The central circum? stance is that being isn't a being, isn't an entity. Being does not exist. Does it follow from this that it doesn't matter? Let us see. If being is different from beings, it is also true that there are differences within being itself. This is the point that Aristotle ex? pressed in Book Gamma, Ch. 2, "'Being' [to on] is said in many ways." He was not referring to different groups or classes of entities here, but to differences that show up when we express being in language, dif? ferent ways in which this entity or that en? tity can be said to be. His standard outline of them is in Delta, Ch. 7, where he pro? pounds a fourfold division. I won't dwell at length on Aristotle, since the divisions he makes apply more evidently to the Greek than to the English language, and because we ourselves can find divisions in English, not exactly the same as his, to be sure, but just for that reason a further con? firmation that being is expressed in many ways. (i) The most common use in English of "is" and other words of that family is predi? cative. We say what a thing or person is, or what a thing or person is like. "She is a writer." (ii) It is in quite a different sense that we use "is" to express identity. "She is Margaret Atwood." This difference reaches right into the depths of logic and has prompted the use of two quite differ? ent logical symbols for the two of them, (iii) Partly instructed by logic and partly by ordinary linguistic usage, we recognize another use of "is" to express existence. "There is a crater on the moon." In olden times, too, you might hear in this way of someone's death ? "Jane Austen is no more" ? when "is" was still used as the general means for signifying existence or non-existence. This too has acquired its own distinct logical symbol. Modern logic shows how distinct are these senses of "is." To make a statement employing one of the three senses does not need to imply state This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE / 361 ments of another kind: to say "Jane Austen is a writer," for example, does not imply that Jane Austen exists. So we have many reasons of our own to endorse the ancient slogan that "being" is said in many ways. Far from putting any difficulties in the way of our study, however, this circum? stance will help us to consider the hypothe? sis of the ontological difference even more concretely. It opens out a number of dis? tinct lines of questioning. In every one of the three cases, we can ask whether the ex? pressions of being signify something differ? ent from what the other expressions signify, (i) Take the case of predication. The sub? ject-term "she" refers to a person (living or dead), a person we can recognize as a be? ing, an entity, Seiendes (whether actual or not). The predicate term "..a writer" brings before us a class of persons who are beings, entities, Seiendes (whether actual or not). The statement as a whole says that this sub? ject, "she," is one of that class. So our ex? amination can focus on the exact force of the word "is" in the statement. It doesn't refer to an entity or to a class. What, then, does it do? (ii) Or take identity. Where there is an identity-statement, "She is N. N.," can we isolate the factor of sameness that is asserted in the statement, isolating it from the person in question and from the name in question? And (iii) when I assert the existence of X, could I focus upon the very factor of existence itself, as distinct from that which exists or that which I assert exists? Any one of these three lines of in? quiry, it seems, can now be pursued sepa? rately from the others: three different ways in which being might be differentiated from beings. It was a logical analysis, with perhaps some help from grammar, that differenti? ated our three senses of "is" and thereby gave us a basis for differentiating three spe? cific and distinct inquiries into the onto? logical difference. Later on in the paper, too, there will be some further guidance we can accept from logic and grammar. Yet in its root, the ontological difference itself is not a theme for logic or for grammar, and it will become misinterpreted if it is pur sued by those methods alone. We must not think of this terminology, "is," "exists," etc., only in its role in utter? ances, or as constituting material for poten? tial utterances that we might make from time to time. No matter whether we are speaking or thinking or acting, we are aware of objects in our immediate environ? ment and objects remote from us; we are aware of persons, some known to us, some unknown; and we are aware of ourselves. We are aware of the existence or the non existence of all this, we are aware of the identity or the non-identity of different parts of all this, and we make predications. From this point of view, our linguistic ut? terances are just a means for giving expres sion to what we know and think. Predication, existence, and identity inter? penetrate our thought, our perception, our memory, our action, our life. Elsewhere3 I have made the case in de? tail that all these terms ? which I call the ontological vocabulary ? interact with the projects and intentions of our lives. So our linguistic awareness of being (the ontologi? cal vocabulary) enters into fusion with our existential awareness of being (our self consciousness, our projects, our awareness of the world). It is where these two are fused that we are able to speak of an un? derstanding of being. In this fusion within our experience, the three senses of "is" are certainly not as sharply differentiated from one another as they become when they are subsequently expressed in a logical analysis. After logic and grammar have made their distinctions, we have to see that the three senses of "is" are clarified interpretations, and applica? tions, of what was originally understood in a confused and undifferentiated way: ex? tracts from the turbulence of our experience and thought. Now a logical philosophy or a grammatical philosophy might be content to analyze these words and devices purely for the sake of analysis. But since it is ap? parent that the words and devices also play a role in our experience, guiding our per? ception and action, a philosophy that deals with human experience must study the This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 362 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY words and devices in their concrete unity, in their fusion with all our experience. (Such philosophy, however, must beware replicating the confusion and turbulence of life ? I'll come back to this point later on.) Though it is logic that differentiates for us the three senses of "is," it is not logic that differentiates being from beings. The same point holds for grammar. Where we call somebody a writer, or identify her by name, or where we assert the existence or non-existence of a person or a thing, the word "is" is showing its many faces. But being is not a word. There is the danger of one specific misunderstanding of the onto? logical difference that arises here ? if you try to accommodate the ontological differ? ence under the general correlation: Words and Things, or Logic and World. You might have formed the opinion that whereas there are lots of real beings or entities in the world, being itself just resides within language in some way, as a mode of our linguistic expression. The temptation of this misinterpretation must be confronted and avoided. I might mention here another possible version of the same misinterpretation, one that stands closer to Heidegger and the way in which he introduced the ontological difference in The Basic Problems of Phe? nomenology. You could suppose that "be? ing" was one of our most fundamental concepts, even a category in the Kantian or neo-Kantian sense, a concept so fundamen? tal that it was implemented in all our thought and experience, no matter whether we were dealing with writers or hunters or the moon. If we take another look at Heidegger, we see the claim that, in order for us to have the experience that we do, we need an understanding of being (Seins verstaendnis). Surely, you might say, this is precisely a fundamental concept ? per? haps a category, in any case belonging to the order of concepts. What is the response to this interpretation? The danger consists in supposing that there are beings, Seiendes, in the environment, and then supposing that being is the concept that covers them. We'd be bringing the ontological difference under the general heading, Concept and Reality. "Beings, entities? ? that's reality. Being? ? that's a concept." But in fact being is not equivalent to the words or the logical devices we have mentioned, or to the concept no matter how "fundamental" it might be. Instead of that, being is what they all signify ? even though it is not a being. We have ventured here into the question of the "territory," as it were, in which the ontological difference is located, claiming that it cannot be accommodated as a case of the difference between words and things, logic and world, concept and reality. Instead of that, I shall be making the case that it shows itself within human life and experience. In its first appearance, that is, in what Heidegger called its "latent" form, it is a difference between the self and the being of the self. So our discussion will lead us to focus upon the human subject. While the grammarian and the logician and the transcendental philosopher are dealing with different domains, and they dare not mix up words with logical devices, or either of them with fundamental con? cepts, those differences play little or no role in the further course of the present paper. Of course, all these things are dis? tinct! But the distinctions are not germane to our exploration of the ontological differ? ence. In my further discussion, then, I shall be talking about the words, "is," "am," etc. ? the ontological vocabulary ? without calling attention to any special problems that might arise in logic or in the transcen? dental philosophy of concepts. Though I shall continue talking about words, I could have made my case in a different lexicon if I had chosen to. I invite any reader so in? clined to translate my remarks about the ontological vocaulary into the lexicon of logical devices or the lexicon of fundamen? tal concepts. These are variations that do not affect the ontological difference itself. There are no restrictions on the applica? bility of existence, identity, and predica? tion: anything that we contemplate or see or produce comes within the scope of our ontological vocabulary. That of course in This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE / 363 eludes ourselves along with all the other people with whom we have to do. And each of us brings himself or herself together with the others in speech and in the thoughts that are unspoken. "She is a writer but I am a teacher" ? so we may predicate. Or I may introduce myself to you and at the same time introduce my wife: "I am Graeme Nicholson and this is Linda Nicholson, my wife" ? a complex of sev? eral identity statements. Or someone may think "My parents are dead, but thank God Vm still alive!" ? existential statements coupled together in thought. The self, the others, the surrounding world ? all this is mingled together in speech and thought, and each and every part of this is deter? mined by way of existence, identity, and predication. Philosophy too can deal with anything and everything, and it can make its start anywhere. But in this paper, I am making my start with the human being, more precisely, the human being with an awareness or consciousness of self, and in particular that self-consciousness as deter? mined by existence, identity, and predication. Existence has weight for us, so does identity, and so do predications. They are there for us, they matter, but they are not the same as myself, yourself, himself, her? self, themselves. No matter how mingled together our awareness of self may be with our awareness of other people and things, and no matter how mingled and confused the various senses of "is" may be, it is none? theless clear that our own existence, our own identity, and whatever we may predi? cate of ourselves, are uniquely momentous for every human being. That is why phi? losophy cannot possibly treat being as a mere category, or logical function, seman? tical function, or word. We have mentioned "be" in the sense of existing. Our own existence is not itself a being, an entity, but who would deny that it is important to us? Very likely it is to each of us a matter more momentous than anything else, despite the fact that it is not a being, an entity. Moreover, we care about who we are, the issue that I called our iden? tity. We are very sensitive to mistaken identity; we can be badly hurt when some? one does not recognize us. Being you or being me is important to us, though it is not another entity. And we care about what we are, liberal or conservative, worker or writer. In this third way, too, we are aware of our being ? being X or being Y ? but it is not an entity that we are aware of in this way. I mean to say then that it is not just be? ings to which we humans relate, beings with which we have to deal, or beings that are the only or the primary objects of our knowledge, speech, and thought. What matters most of all to us is not a being at all, but our being, in one or all of these ways. A merely logical or linguistic or con? ceptual interpretation of the ontological difference cannot hold. Though being must not be understood as an entity, we do have a relationship to it, one that mat? ters more to us than any relationship we may have to beings, to our property, to our country, or even to other persons. It is in our own self-awareness that we shall find the latent and original form of the ontological difference that Heidegger sought, not within our awareness of other people or the objects of science or the things of the perceived environment. The experience that contains the primordial awareness of being is the one that mani? fests the latent ontological difference. Thus we have, from the start, a divided self awareness, a point that Part II will try to make more vivid and clear: an awareness of self and an awareness of the being of the self. My argument commits me to a further step, of course, to show a development of the ontological difference, how it can also hold beyond the terrain of our self-aware? ness, how there is a universal difference be? tween being and beings, how we could see Sein and Seiendes differing even where the Seiendes is water or earth, historical or natural things, and people other than our? selves. To demonstrate that point would be to show that the ontology of human self awareness constitutes the fundamental on? tology. While my argument commits me to taking that step, it must be left for another This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 364 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY occasion. The logic of my argument re? quires me to explore the latent ontological difference first, only then to show how it is able to be foundational. In recent years, it has been common to raise doubts about the practice of making a start in philosophy with the human being. Heidegger, for example, in his Letter on Humanism^ offered a sharp critique of Sar? tre's humanistic existentialism and there? with he offered a revisionary self interpretation that downplayed the ele? ments of subjectivity in Being and Time. As this argument gained influence among the linguistic structuralists, the post-struc? turalists, and others, it became common to denigrate the theme of existence as well as any focus on the subject or subjectivity5 ? one of the lines that was beginning to di? vide post-modernism from the mainstream of modern philosophy. The post-moderns did not want to substitute non-human en? tities for humanity as the foundation for ontology, of course; what they wanted was no foundations at all, and, moreover, no on? tology. For them, moving from humanity, Dasein, to being in general was just a replay of the traditional metaphysical move that proceeded from beings to being as their ground, their arched Metaphysics, they ar? gued, is an inquiry that first chooses beings as a ground for the exploration of being, and then gives grounds for those beings in turn by way of being, a circle that is not at all benign. In this critique of metaphysics, the post-moderns could certainly find support from some texts of Heidegger. But I believe that the present line of inquiry, approaching being through Dasein, will not succumb to the post-modern line of critique. II Language helps to constitute our collec? tive culture and institutions, and it helps to shape our experience at the individual level. Anyone who is a doctor or who as? pires to be a doctor is dependent on a vast tissue of linguistic articulations for self-un? derstanding. It is not only the simple predicate terms like "doctor" that we need, and not only some of the specialized termi nology associated with the medical life. The whole of one's language enters in, and here in particular I mean to say that words such as "is" and "be" make a difference. The fact that the vocabulary of our everday Ufe includes the word "being" is rich in con? sequences. Without it, we would understand ourselves and our projects differently. The diverse senses of "is" that logic has clarified are not clearly differentiated, but confused, in the pre-logical awareness that governs our daily life, experience, and choices. My intention is to probe into this pre-logical awareness, but, as I said earlier, that gives us no warrant for perpetuating the confusions in a philosophical discus? sion. Therefore I shall select just one of the senses of "is" that logic has discerned, and examine its role within our experience. We could then turn to another, and another, and indeed another (for actually there are more than three!) and repeat the investi? gation. This paper, however, will look at just one of them. I shall restrict the discus? sion to the predicative sense of "is," with? out existence or identity. My intent is to see in this particular case how the ontological difference shows up within our experience. The word "being" that plays such a great role in philosophy is a verbal noun, a ger? und formed from a participle. The gerund form of "be" can continue to keep its predicate, thus: "...being a doctor." (The gerund often occurs without a predicate, especially in translations of philosophical works, and perhaps at such times it might signify existence, but, to confine our discus? sion, I'll say no more about such cases.) The predicating gerund allows us to make general statements and have general thoughts. Language always takes us be? yond the merely individualized experience. Mary is a doctor and Bill is a doctor, and being a doctor is something the two of them have in common. The gerund allows us to omit reference to Mary and Bill, and make doctors' experience itself the subject of thought or discussion. We can say "Be? ing a doctor is difficult," a general state? ment that takes no notice of whatever events might have befallen Mary or Bill in This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE / 365 particular. Nevertheless, everyone under? stands full well that there have to be indi? viduals of whom the general statement is true. If doctors didn't generally experience difficulties, the statement would be false. So a gerund always has implicit subjects. The predicating gerund is a good device for expressing the self-understanding of someone who is a doctor and who is recog? nized by others in the same way. Being a doctor, being a wife, being a philosopher, being an artist ? these are cases that in? volve the conscious undertaking of being this or being that. This locution is not ger? mane for aspects of your life that are not known to you, anything that just happens to be true of you. You can be a distant rela? tive of somebody without knowing it, for example, or descended from ancestors lost in the mists of time. Evolutionary theory shows that we were descended from certain primates and never knew about it until quite recently. It is not for such cases that we use the predicating gerund. Though de? scended from primates, you don't go around being a post-primate. You cannot be a doctor without having planned it. That was an intention formed before the fact, but equally true is that, af? ter the fact, so to speak ? actually it is dur? ing the fact ? you cannot be a doctor without being aware of it. There is no doc? tor who has never said "I am a doctor." There are lots of other cases, too, in which we are something intentionally, beyond the class of professions ? being a wife or a husband, a Catholic or a Jew. And there is a reciprocal action between the language and the projects that we un? dertake. Our projects and intentions also help to give definition to our under? standing of being, and in this way they have an impact on the vocabulary. The way life is lived in our times has an impact on our understanding of doctors and medicine, and it gives some definition, too, to what it is to be a doctor or to be a wife or a hus? band. Being a doctor nowadays involves no descent from an ancient line of doctors, no initiation into sacred mysteries, as was the case in ancient civilizations. These days you just have to get a medical degree and then jump a few other hurdles that are pretty well known. Being a wife or a hus? band nowadays may be temporary, with no great fixity of roles. A woman today who becomes a wife does not step into a myste? rious destiny that has been prepared for her by a priesthood. So the ontological vo? cabulary is no more immune to change and evolution than any other stratum of the language. Much modern philosophy, however, is working with an archaic understanding of being, as if being something were a des? tiny, an essence, a fate, or a nature, with the philosopher promising us deliverance from such a destiny. Sartrean existential? ism in the 1940's, for instance, criticized the habits whereby freedom was confused with being and facticity, criticized the way we think of others' choices as if they expressed a fixity of their being, an essence. In fact, this is a major theme in modern culture as a whole: to divert attention away from what someone is and focus attention rather on deeds, works, accomplishments. We who are teachers, for instance, are required to award grades to our students, and many of us have said to a student, "The grade is for your work, not for you as a person." We are so anxious not to get ontological about it. But my analysis to the contrary will be that philosophy need not be trapped in an archaic time-warp in this re? spect. Our being and our awareness of being alike are both marked through and through by time, possibility, and surpassing. Now I want to discuss the impact upon the doctor of being a doctor, the impact upon the artist or the Catholic or the hus? band of being an artist, a Catholic or a hus? band. My intent is to bring to the fore the very factor of being in its distinctness. Let me employ the illustration of an artist. Be? ing an artist involves a futural aspect. Just as an airplane requires the continual ex? penditure of energy in order to stay in the air, so being an artist brings with it the ef? fort of continuing to be an artist. To be an artist implies having to go on being an art? ist; it requires active self-projection into This content downloaded from 188.112.177.181 on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:53:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 366 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY the works and days that lie ahead; it is a project, an undertaking. T