Heidegger declares in his Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics that the main problematic in his seminal book, Being and Time, is the negotiation of neither “being” nor “time,” but the negotiation of the “and” in the title, meaning the timely condition of being. Being is understood as a way to be—a Zu-sein, meaning the being that we ought to be, as a future being. However, this understanding refers to an instant, momentous future that must be constantly realized, at any time. In Heidegger’s conception of time, the “now” in conventional occidental philosophy from Plato to Hegel is always considered as a “not-anymore-now” or a “not-yet-now,” and is reduced to the general notion of an unchangeable eternity. Heidegger’s critique of the concept of temporality in Western thought can also be found in his book on Nietzsche: “Eternity, not a static ‘now,’ nor as a sequence of ‘nows’ rolling of into the infinite, but as the ‘now’ that bends back into itself.”

¶ 6:30 AM