Renxiang Liu

In this paper, I take three steps to articulate, in the context of Sartre’s L’être et le néant, the temporal resistance of conversion, broadly construed as transforming to a radically new fundamental project. First, I lay out the basic concepts of Sartrean ontology of nothingness, explaining how they helped Sartre justify our total freedom in the ontological sense. Second, I explore in the Sartrean context the dialogue between the fundamental project and particular acts. Third, by mapping the two terms of the dialogue onto Sartre’s schema for the temporality of being-for-itself, I reconstruct from Sartre’s arguments a defense of the temporal resistance of conversion, which is based on the for-itself’s non-convergence with itself and the original delay of the fundamental project from its realization.

This final chapter summarizes the arguments so far and returns to the question of meaning. The “crisis of meaning” originates from the understanding of meaning as something extant. The search for meaning misses meaning when it demands immediacy or instantaneity. The demand for instantaneity is rooted in what Heidegger called “calculative thinking,” which is characteristic of modern technology and science. Calculative thinking identifies things with objects of representation and seeks “the mathematical” in them, i.e., aspects which can be determined prior to encountering the thing. But this pre-determination also skips the meaningful unfolding of the thing. Here, meaning is reconstrued as the way in which things or events take time to unfold themselves, which calls for patience on our part. This means a bilateral availability between beings and us, rather than their unilateral availability for us. The meaning of “waiting” changes accordingly. Rather than ordering possibilities as if they were already actual, waiting protects possibilities as possibilities in an attentive receptivity.

This chapter discusses how to think of an originary sense of time which is relevant for the ontology of temporal differentiation. Time in the ordinary sense does not help clarify this ontology; we can only begin with cosmological time and subjective time (which seem incompatible) and look for their common root. Cosmological time passes by evenly; in it we find only successive instants, not genuine presents. This insufficiency springs from the interpretation of temporal processes according to their supratemporal states of completion. Conversely, the subjective foundationalism of time explains the constitution of the present in terms of the temporalizing activities of the subject, yet in so doing it leaves incomprehensible vast spans of time far beyond the subject’s reach. Nor can it do justice to the autonomy and excess of time over the subject. The intentionalism of time refines subjectivism by distinguishing between temporal horizons and the content which emerges from within them, thus avoiding the predicaments of naïve subjectivism. Urged by the problem it faces, however, intentionalism gradually liberates the self-differentiation implied in temporal phenomena from the sphere of subjective consciousness, for otherwise the structure of time-consciousness as such would once again become a supratemporal form, leading to the dissolution of the temporality of time. The “evential” interpretation of time takes it from the cosmological view of time and argues that supratemporal “structures” of time in intentionalism can be overcome only if the excess of time is taken seriously. However, just like differential ontology, the evential interpretation tends to understand the events as impersonal and absolutely transcendent. In this way, it misses the immanence of differentiation and synthesis which we observe in temporal phenomena.

Upon the reformulation of subjectivity, this chapter discusses how the plurality of subjects is irreducible. For some philosophies, the plurality of subjects is like a scandal: it is introduced only to remedy the deficiencies which the singular subject happens to exhibit, while ideally there can be but one subject. By contrast, one of the advantages of the ontology of temporal differentiation is its justification of plurality. First, openness to the other is found at the heart of subjectivity; the other represents an alterity with its own rhythms of temporalization and is necessary for the enrichment of the subjective self. The relation between the subject and its other, however, is not always cooperative; there is encounter and even conflict, and it is the latter which individuates the subject. Sartre’s work in Part Three of Being and Nothingness shows that, since the gaze of the other objectifies the subject, objectification of the other (constituting the world as a subject) and objectification by the other (experiencing the other’s existence with the passivity of the body) cannot take place simultaneously, but only alternately. Thus, there cannot be a totalizing view of the world, only “a synthesis whose totality is inconceivable,” which is enriched in this incessant alternation. Beginning with this instability of differences, we need to reinterpret the self-identity of the subject and the diachronic identity of beings which are manifest. The former is based on the possibility of encountering an other, or better, the availability for the other. Arendt in The Human Conditions discussed how making and keeping promises establishes “islands of certainty in an ocean of uncertainty,” which means that our self-identity need not be based on a substantial ground and can be stabilized in the diversified field of plurality. The diachronic identity of beings, on the other hand, is protected through an intergenerational immortality that is distinguished from supratemporal eternity. The achievements which an individual can help realize are unique; this radical novelty makes the achievements survive the individual’s lifespan thanks to the witness of plural others. This fragile immortality maintains a continuity of achievements, which is needed for history and tradition, without suffocating the emergence of the new.

This chapter reconsiders the role subjectivity would play in the ontology of temporal differentiation. It does so by discussing how Heidegger’s “Da-sein” suggested a non-subjectivist notion of subjectivity. The elimination of subjective foundationalism from the concept of subjectivity does not entail the naturalistic and impersonalist dissolution of the subject. The theoretical tension was already visible in competing interpretations of Dasein’s role in Being and Time. According to Michel Henry, Dasein enables the world by projection [Entwurf], one of its existential constitutions [existenziale Verfassungen], but Dasein is also one being among others within this world—this forced Heidegger into a vicious circle. William Blattner puts emphasis on the first direction and understands Heidegger’s ontology simply as a “temporal idealism”—Dasein, by making possible temporality, becomes the necessary premise of being itself. Blattner thus criticizes Heidegger for not taking seriously the irreducible extendedness which “ordinary time” exhibits. While defending Heidegger, John Haugeland suggests that we distinguish between “Dasein” as an ontological structure and as individual beings, and he recommends that we limit the use of the word to the first sense; by contrast, I discern two distinct yet continuous characterizations of Dasein. Ontologically prior is “disclosedness” [Erschlossenheit] mentioned in Chap. 5, Division One of Being and Time: Dasein means a “t/here” [da] in contradistinction to its “elsewhere,” which is indispensable for the unfolding (temporal differentiation) of beings. Therefore, it is being [Sein] which, for its own manifestation, must call forth Da-sein. Ontologically derivative and secondary is reflexivity [Jemeinigkeit]: it matters for me to be my individuated self, not because I have some immutable essence, but precisely because I am appropriated and possessed by the unfolding of beings, thus becoming an irreplaceable “t/here” for it. In contrast to subjectivism, which presupposes the faculties of the subject on the basis of reflexive structures such as the cogito, the ontology of temporal differentiation turns reflexivity from an explanans into an explanandum, while the real explanans is the temporal differentiation of being via beings, which is realized through the “t/here” of Dasein alone.

This chapter examines the ontological presuppositions behind the traditional idea of the dissociation of being from time; it raises, as an alternative, the “ontology of temporal differentiation.” Predominant in everyday understanding and in the natural sciences is the “ontology of the extant,” which identifies the being of beings with their being-extant or full determinacy. To ensure the independence of such a full determinacy from finite human experience, a perfect intellect must be assumed. This, and not the human subject, is considered the measure for the being of beings. The ontology of the extant exhibits two problems. First, it focuses on extant differences at the price of the differentiating processes which allow the differences to “make a difference” in the first place, so that all differences are in fact juxtaposed indifferently in the being. Second, it understands the essence of beings according to the manifestation of beings to the perfect intellect, so that their manifestation to the finite human intellect becomes always “second-hand.” To address the first problem, we need to attend to the process of differentiation, which allows each aspect of a being to be distinguished from other possible aspects while remaining with the latter in an originary unity. It is thanks to this process that the difference “matters” or “makes a difference.” In the movement of contemporary “post-metaphysics,” which rose under the influences of the later Heidegger and Deleuze, a “differential ontology” has been articulated to take differentiation seriously; it understands being as incessant differentiation. Due to a mistrust of modern subjectivity, however, differential ontology takes a naturalist or impersonalist position and must assume a realm of “the virtual,” in which all differences subsist. The manifestation of beings, now construed as actualization from the virtual, becomes once again second-hand experience. This is how differential ontology fails to address the second problem with the ontology of the extant. Faced with this challenge, I propose the “ontology of temporal differentiation.” It says that an originary sense of time must be prepared to make comprehensible the “focus-margin” structure of the field of sense which is at work in the manifestation of beings, as well as the “tenuous presence” of beings which this structure enables.

Having articulated the horizonal interpretation of time, I return in this chapter to the notion of finitude, which has been presupposed through Chaps. 2–4. Both the ontology of the extant and post-metaphysical differential ontology tend to understand finitude from outside it: the former with the help of the infinite intellect; the latter with the impersonal virtual. However, if we want to let the un-folding of beings present us with folds of meaning which have indeed been folded (instead of already flattened prior to un-folding), we must understand being as such (and not just the appearing of beings) as piecemeal unfolding. This was already evident in Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being. To construe finitude from within it, however, a critique must be carried out of Stein’s Thomism, which presupposes the independence and priority of “essential being.” Structurally, intrinsic finitude means the realization of freedom within the receding bounds determined by impending impossibilities, as Heidegger’s “being-towards-the-end” [Sein zum Ende] discloses. Dynamically, intrinsic finitude means that the end is not just suspended on the outside but more importantly proliferated as countless minuscule deaths, which creates cracks in life so that what is new may be born. This can be read from Heidegger’s notion of “finitization” [Verendlichung], which we find in five texts he authored during 1929–30. Finally, while the clarification of intrinsic finitude assumes the viewpoint of Dasein, it can be generalized to cover beings in general. Their being consists in finite unfolding, as Heidegger exemplified with his analysis of the Greek temple in “The Origin of the Work of Art.”

This introductory chapter maps out the occasion, main arguments, and methodology of the book. Written in response to the crisis of meaning, the book traces it to the dissociation of time from being. The fact that meaningful things and events take time to unfold leads us to wonder what sense of time is involved is this “taking time.” In light of Heidegger’s thinking, an ontology of temporal differentiation is developed in contrast both to the ontology of the extant and to post-metaphysical differential ontology, in which time is discussed in conjunction with being, finitude, subjectivity, and plurality. At the end of the chapter, a synopsis of the following chapters is provided.

Faced with the difficulties presented in Chap. 3, this chapter takes Heidegger’s Kant-interpretation as a clue and proposes the horizonal interpretation of time. Heidegger, even in his “transcendental period” of 1920s, never fell prey to subjectivism; this means his work may be construed as a transcendental philosophy which does not presuppose subjective consciousness. The subjectivist interpretation of Heidegger’s notion of “time-horizon” is untenable. The horizonality of the horizon needs to be reconsidered: it presupposes neither a seeing subject nor a ground of absolute absence; rather, it means the “whereto” which orients and constitutes subjectivity. On the other hand, the subject, instead of actively constituting the horizon, “lets it be.” This reading of horizonality is affirmed by Section 24 of Heidegger’s Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1927–28). Analysis of the section shows that the structure of the now-horizon is local differentiation in originary unity; the structure of the horizon-of-having-been is releasement from a “here” to its “elsewhere”; the structure of the horizon-of-what-is-to-come is further determination of the yet-indeterminate identical being. Together, these three structures constitute a unified time-horizon; it is a transcendental horizon in the sense that it orients the subject with the alterity of the thing, thus making possible the temporal experience which seems to “belong to” the subject.

This book proposes a reconsideration of the intertwinement of time, meaning, and the piecemeal unfolding of things. It gives a phenomenological-ontological account of the time-horizon at work in each being's manifestation, explores the notion of time as a productive resistance in this manifestation, and redefines human finitude and subjectivity accordingly to enable an attentive mode of waiting for meaning. The discussion is significantly informed by but not limited to the works of Martin Heidegger and thus responds to the question of the turn in Heidegger's career by suggesting a systematic framework, centered upon a generalized finitude of Being as such, which may have consistently underlain Heidegger's thinking before and after the turn. As subjectivity receives a qualified affirmation in the book, in contrast to both subjectivist voluntarism and impersonalism, this text also opens up the possibility to think of the plurality of human beings as essential to being human. While the book is a continuation of a few traditions in continental philosophy which takes time philosophically seriously, it is distinctive in not considering time abstractly but always situating its conceptualization in the context of what it means for a thing or an event to be. Instead of a mere measure of change, an itself invariant structure of happening, or a new metaphysical absolute, time is interpreted here as the way beings are. The interpretation comes from, and seeks to do justice to, the basic experience of time bringing about wonder, fulfillment, or disappointment. The book appeals to students and researchers working on Heidegger scholarship, phenomenology, and more generally the philosophy of time and subjectivity. It inspires a patience for meaning in mortal transience, to find dignity and beauty in what will eventually expire--that is, in life as such.

In this paper, I respond to contemporary debates on technoscience by asking about how science and technology are fusible. This directs me to Heidegger’s critique of calculative thinking in modern technology and science: it turns things into objects of representation so that they may be ordered and manipulated. The unilateral availability of objects for the subject is achieved by attending to what Heidegger called the “mathematical” in things, i.e., conceptual schemes pre-delineated before encountering things. To imagine an alternative, I transform the phenomenological account of temporality into a thing-centric account of the unfolding of things at their own rhythms. What matters is to be patient for such rhythms, to enter a relation of mutual availability. This is in effect becoming the paradigm in contemporary practices of technoscience. The inquiry shows what is problematic (prescience) and what is promising (patience) in the technoscience that is still taking shape in our age.

In this paper, I discuss, in a Heideggerian context, the possibility of de-subjectivizing the notion of the transcendental time-horizon and reinterpreting it as a formally indicated ‘whereto’ of releasement. The structures of the time-horizon depict the way beings unfold in the fullness of time in their alterity, and they orient the subject’s activity of ‘projection.’ What results is a field-oriented (as opposed to self-oriented) transcendental philosophy which would survive Heidegger’s critique of his own transcendental project, and which would avoid mystification. I take three steps. First, I point out that the problematization of ‘transcendental Heidegger’ is based on the subjectivist interpretation of the time-horizon. I problematize a recent account in the subjectivist vein, arguing that it is neither indispensable, nor very plausible, nor the most illuminative of Heidegger’s work. Second, with the help of Dahlstrom, Golob, Engelland, Sheehan, and Vasterling, I gradually dissociate the notion of the horizon from subjectivism, the visual metaphor, and the assumption of an absolute ground. I suggest instead that the horizonality of the horizon be understood temporally, i.e., as an interplay of presencing and absencing where what matter most are the structures, themselves affected by time, which the transcendental field displays when beings unfold themselves within it. Third, I identify three of those structures when performing a de-subjectivizing reading of Heidegger’s interpretation of the threefold synthesis in Kant’s A-Deduction. These structures capture the way every being manifests itself, without themselves being necessarily grounded in the subject’s activity. This gives an example of how transcendental philosophy can clarify what the time-horizon is like while bracketing the question of its provenance.

My task in this article is to prepare a multilayered conceptual framework so that one can then read, from Being and Nothingness, an account of human freedom that is both psychologically relevant and ontologically acute. Crucial to this framework is a distinction between three interpretations of freedom: ontological freedom, psychological–practical freedom, and the psychologistic misinterpretation of freedom. First, I articulate the sense and extent of ontological freedom against the background of Sartre’s phenomenological ontology, comprising concepts such as the in-itself, the for-itself, nihilation [néantisation], and constitution. Based on the universal structure ontological freedom discloses, I make sense of Sartre’s controversial claim that freedom is absolute or “total,” suggesting that a contradiction arises only when one fails to distinguish between ontological and psychological–practical freedom and mistakes the latter to be absolute. Second, I argue that ontological freedom is the condition for the possibility of psychological–practical freedom or the lack thereof. This, then, allows me to develop some psychologically relevant implications from Sartre’s ontological account of freedom. Third, I show that Sartre’s critique of a psychologistic interpretation of freedom, which treats the for-itself as if it were in-itself, renders irrelevant, if not obsolete, the debate between determinism and free will—to reduce freedom to a will isolated from the action would make freedom either capricious or impotent, depending on one’s ontological commitment. I conclude with a remark on the temporal finitude of human action in Sartre, which helps explain why the psychologistic misinterpretation arises and becomes predominant in the first place.

This article formulates the “enigma of time” as the paradoxical compatibility between the apparent completeness of a temporal object’s presence and the actual incompleteness of its manifestation. Proceeding with the methodological assumption that this paradox cannot be “solved” by positing an atemporal foundation, I point to a constant risk in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology that the temporality of temporal phenomena is traced to an atemporal activity arranging equally atemporal contents—and thereby is explained away rather than explained. The risk was already recognizable in the “schematic model” of apprehension, and it persisted in the foundationalist interpretation of “absolute time-consciousness.” By contrast, I suggest a hermeneutics that takes time seriously, which comprehends the paradox and make it the productive core of philosophizing. Only in this way can time cease to be a petrifying impasse and instead redefine the landscape of philosophy.

In this paper, I explore the ontological implication of Sartre’s and Heidegger’s phenomenological accounts of emotion. I start by looking at Sartre’s notion of the ‘magical world’ in his booklet Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, showing how emotion, for him, reveals the overall structure of ‘human reality’ rather than a dispensable aspect of it. Discussing experiences of the magical world allowed Sartre to ‘bracket’ what he called ‘the determinism of the world’, which predominated naturalist-representationalist psychology of emotion in his time. Then I derive from Sartre’s account of emotion an ontological implication, i.e., that the world is primarily magical. Without at once deciding whether this applies to Sartre, I exhibit how radical it can get by examining Heidegger’s more consistent account of emotion in Being and Time. There, it turns out that the determinist, neutral world championed by representationalism relies on an ‘emotionless emotion’ and thus is not fundamental. Finally, I suggest that, while textual evidences in Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions are inconsistent and allow a strong and a weak interpretation of its ontological implication, the former should be favored in consideration of Sartre’s later development.

My task in this paper is to study Sartre’s ontology as a godless theology. The urgency of defending freedom and responsibility in the face of determinism called for an overarching first principle, a role that God used to play. I first show why such a principle is important and how Sartre filled the void that God had left with a solipsist consciousness. Then I characterize Sartre’s ontology of this consciousness as a “dualist monism”, explaining how it supports his radical conception of freedom. Then, by assessing Sartre’s dualist monism through a theological lens, I disclose an inconsistency in his thought concerning the idea that the in-itself is a deterministic plenitude, which presumes a theos different from consciousness and hence threatens monism. Finally I argue that his inconsistency originates from the finitude of Sartre’s first principle and analyze this finitude by examining the modes of temporality it implies. The entire trajectory problematizes the practice of theo-logy, the idea that a theos stands at the origin of the “logic” (organization or intelligibility) of everything such that all must be conceived under the logos of the theos. While Sartre forcefully criticized the theology of the infinite, his was nonetheless a theology of finitude.