Reference, Sign, and Language: Being and Time, Section 17

Abstract

The beginning of the unfolding of the Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein is marked by the effort to unroll the discussion of the familiar but as yet uncomprehended phenomenon of the world. The issue which sustains this discussion throughout, and distinguishes it from philosophy’s concern with the world is called reference (Verweisung). Although this issue is specifically dealt with in section 17 of Being and Time, reference so pervades the entire discussion of the world as to extend its influence far beyond this section. Without the involvement of reference overall in the discussion, Preparatory Fundamental Analysis could not de facto demonstrate that the dominion of ‘relation’ and ‘object’ is brought to an end and a new understanding of the world is attained. Henceforth it makes no sense to talk about being related to the world. The phenomenon of reference provides the primary indication that we are in the world. Composed of references of all kinds, referential contexts are indicators of our being in the world. Subsequent to the discovery of the world in Being and Time, ‘object’ too loses its primacy along with ‘relation.’ Now we realize that the confrontation with objects happens only when we do not heed the flexible referential contexts which give rise to something entirely different from an object. This is so because referential contexts do not have the constancy which supports something as immutable as an object.

The measure of discoveredness which has gone into a language can be preserved, or renewed beyond the ‘death’ of a language. Heidegger, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs