Quality and Calculation: A Phenomenological Journey

Abstract

In a paragraph from the Contributions to Philosophy¹ (Heidegger, 1999a, p. 94) to which this work will pay particular attention, Martin Heidegger writes: ‘Quality is meant here as the basic character of the quale, of the what, of the ownmost, of be-ing itself.’ This sentence seems surprising because quality is, at the end of the sentence, associated with the word ‘being’ and, not least because the word is written in such a strange, obscure form. Quality is ‘the basic character of be-ing itself’,² where we would have felt much more familiar and comfortable with a reference to humankind and that which is human.