third short answer

3. Explain heidegger's notion of phenomenology using his investigation into the phenomenon of time in THE CONCEPT OF TIME as an example of the phenomenological method.

[annie]

3. The word phenomenology is made up of two Greek words: phainomenon and logos. Heidegger’s analysis of the verb phainesthai, from which derives phainomenon is that it means to ‘make appear’ or ‘self- showing’, what Heidegger calls ‘the manifest’. The verb is a form of the verb ‘paino’, meaning ‘to bring into the light’. Heidegger therefore translated ‘phenomenon’ as meaning that which shows itself in itself. The term ‘logos’, has had its meaning concealed throughout philosophy’s history, according to Heidegger. It has been used as ‘positing’ or ‘judging’. However, Heidegger uses it as meaning ‘showing something’ or ‘making something clear’.

The notion of phenomenology can therefore be literally defined as giving a precise account of a phenomenon; of an appearance. It is a descriptive philosophical method that attempts to represent how things appear, to grasp their immediate evident ness without using extraneous points of view and opinions. In order to successfully conduct the phenomenological method, one must set aside all preconceived notions and biases and truly describe with exactitude what is being seen in a particular phenomenon, while taking care not to interpret it.  According to Heidegger, if this method is properly performed, it will show something’s ontology, for what is concealed in phenomena is something’s being.  Phenomenology means... to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself [BT 34].

 Heidegger makes use of phenomenology in his search for the essence of time in his essay The Concept of time. He asks the question “What is time” and attempts to answer it by first finding its starting point. Since time finds itself in eternity, eternity should be time’s starting point. Heidegger then tries to figure out who would be the best expert on the topic by looking at the Christian, the theologian, the philosopher and the physicist. He finds symptoms of time in order to get to its ontology. These symptoms are phenomena. He looks at change. Change is a direct symptom of time, for something can only change within time.  The difficulty arises in the way that, in order to properly see phenomena and therefore be able to get to something’s ontology, one must put aside all opinions and personal views, one must care for the object/thing in question in order to see it as a thing in itself; as a separate existence. To get to something’s true being, one must live less in immediacy, must live more authentically so that one may stop seeing external things as being ready-at-hand or ‘for me’. Heidegger uses this method which enables him to look through the symptoms or phenomena, through the changes in objects and thus see time. His conclusion is that Dasein is time. Dasein must be time, for Dasein is the only being who cares about time. Dasein is concerned with time in its everyday existence, but it cares about it in its authentic existence. Because of this caring, reflecting, noticing and use of time, Dasein is time. Heidegger’s use of phenomenology is what enabled him to get to this conclusion.

[/annie]

[mel and bil]
       The phenomenological method models itself after science and its radical empiricism. Following the ph. method H investigates the ways in which we encounter time, in every dayness (that in which events take place) as the physicist (by scientific measurement, ie. clock) and as dasein existing in time. H takes dasein as the basis for his investigation into time in the Concept of Time, in the existentialist mandate as man as the subject.
       Ph's method is to let that which is being investigated be seen as it shows itself, from itself. But H concludes that time cannot be investigated that way because it does not show itself directly to us. Change in our lives is the symptom through which time announces itself (movement).
       Dasein has priority as an object of ph study of change because dasein has a relationship to time. We usually view time as an infinite sequence of moments, each of which is now. But the scientific conception of time is problem atic because if we experience time as a series of nows of events flowing by then we can have experience of the present but not of the past
and future. Dasein on the other hand, is a single Being that is now past, present, and future. Because I am determined by my past it has reality, because I am now in the future, my future is now  because my present conception of myself depends in part on what I take myself to be in the future. In otherwords, Dasein is now past present and future. Therefore
through our own temporality, Dasein can think that time is a single entity in which past, present, and future are all real. Therefore, time is an abstraction from the temporality of dasein.
[/mel and bil]