Nathan Key

Note: This is the guy I’m learning from right now regarding Heidegger.

I’m still learning and interacting with these ideas, so my understanding could be a bit warped or incorrect- anyone who’s done some major study on Being and Time or Heidegger should feel free to jump in and add to or correct any of what follows. But from what I’ve gathered in the lecture series I’m listening to, Heidegger thinks there are actually two additional states of being beyond the typical substance/subject ontology that is normally described by philosophers. The first is:

Substance/Subject Ontology

This state of being finds its roots in Plato, Aristotle, and subsequently most other philosophers all the way them to the present (and especially or interest to Artificial Intelligence advocates). It claims that being is a state that occurs when a substance is describable. For example, a heavy table is a being because it can be predicated by a single, atomized element. Heaviness is the chosen element describing the table- but we could also substitute brown, round, or any other basic predicate that cannot be broken down into further elements. A substance could be susceptible to a number of descriptors, but it must have at least one elemental descriptor attached to it in order for us to say that it is a substantial being.

Heidegger agrees that substance ontology is a rudimentary state of being, but warns us that it fails to capture the fullest understanding of what being really is. This is because there are certain limitations that we run into when we split a being apart into its most basic elements. As indicated by the failure of AI (we are unable, thus far, to conjoin a matrix of descriptive commands and substances in a way that replicated anything truly human), Heidegger is probably correct. Of course, an AI advocate will argue that it’s because they haven’t broken apart the brain into the fullest logical sequence of data points yet, but the reality is, there’s something other than descriptors and substance that lends itself to being. And this is where a purely substance-driven ontology is flawed.

Heidegger argues that there is an older idea that’s better suited for describing being- one of holism, connectedness, and interdependence among elements that is critical to understanding their being. He outlines some of this in his equipment ontology and more of it later in the Human Ontology.

Equipment Ontology

This second state of being, Heidegger argues, is a holistic approach to being where a substance gains its identity through it’s own attributes and also the other substances that are required for it to make sense. What it means to be a hammer, for instance, is fully dependant upon our understanding of nails, wood, and construction (among other things). A hammer on its own, apart from these other elements is not actually a hammer.

The lecturer gave a pop culture example from the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” where an African Tribe stumbles upon an empty coke bottle that’s been dropped out of the sky from an airplane. Without a context for the bottle, they create all sorts of uses for it- a rolling pin, a weapon- none of which lend themselves toward what the thing would have been within the context of the original owner. The argument is that this coke bottle is NOT a coke bottle apart from an understanding of coke, packaging, and drinking.

Heidegger argues that a piece of equipment is only that thing when it is being used for its function. A hammer in a drawer, without a purpose, might be susceptible to the Substance Ontology- a being that is hard, black, etc. but it is not a hammer in the Equipment Ontological sense of being.

It’s simply a thing.

But here Heidegger needed to make a further distinction between humans and equipment, because we rarely want to treat people as an object or utility. Thus, he outlined the third way of being- that of being human. He calls this existence.

Existence/Human Ontology

In this third state of being, Heidegger argues that only humans exist. I know- this sounds strange, but let me explain!

He is using the word existence, not as a descriptive of being but rather as a state of being. He claims that a tree and a hammer (and even God) don’t exist in the same way that Humans do. Note: he’s not claiming that God does not exist in the same way that an atheist would. And he’s not claiming that trees and hammers don’t exist in the way that Descartes did (Descartes held a very matrixesce brain-in-a-vat interacting with other brains-in-vats paradigm that questioned the nature of reality and whether or not anything other than thought/cognitive powers truly exist).

Rather, he claims that existence is when a substance finds its meaning in engaging with equipment. A human exists when he uses a hammer to build a home and therefore calls himself a carpenter. A human exists when she uses the resources available to her to care for her children and thereby calls herself a mother. This meaning doesn’t have to be expressed. It can be subconscious. I don’t have to consider myself writer, even though I use the equipment around me to write.

So, from what I gather- meaning and identity is directly tied to what it means to be human. Humans find their identity or meaning in what they interact with which makes them different than a tree or a hammer- Or even God who gets His identity from Himself.

And that’s what Heidegger means when he says that God does not exist. Existence is tied to meaning and identity and those are things that are inherent to human beings rather than anything else that we’ve come across so far.

Here’s the thing though… I’m still not sure what Heidegger would think of a comatose man. Since he is unable to interact in a willful way and find identity in substance and equipment, is he actually human? or is he equipment (to be operated on and tested)? or is he merely substance (a piece of meat lying on a table)?

If you’re a Heidegger scholar, please correct any errors. If you want to comment on the accuracy of Heidegger’s claims or the practical application of any of these categories of being, feel free to leave comments.

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