After finishing Sheehan's book, I was no less disappointed than I had been after finishing his introduction. Sheehan has been a brilliant Heidegger scholar and translator for so long, it seems unthinkable that his much talked-about proposal for a "paradigm shift" is really just the attempt to fit the round peg of Heidegger's denkweg into the square of transcendental idealism. But that is ultimately what Sheehan is doing in order to "make sense" of Heidegger. The passage reproduced in this post is yet another example (for there are many in Sheehan's book) of how the very textual evidence being marshaled to support the argument for Heidegger as a philosopher not of Being but of "meaningful presence" and "intelligibility" refutes that argument. In the present case, Heidegger is clear that 1.) he is well aware of this ambiguity, and 2.)he considers the ambiguity of his use of the word Sein to be *necessary*. Instead of asking why, Sheehan goes on to assume that it this ambiguity stems not from rigor but "sloppiness" and that it begs for a thorough going correction in which "Sein" can be decoded as "meaning for man," and this precisely as disjunct from the "objective existence of entities." In short, well worn lines are redrawn and "Sein" is relegated, against every textual objection, to a subjective affair masquerading under the misnomer of the most fundamental trait of all that is.
 

> Instead of asking why, Sheehan goes on to assume that it this ambiguity stems not from rigor but "sloppiness"

That might be true. Sheehan is advocating his case. Although his paradigm doesn't explain everything in Heidegger, it does make sense of much of it, and so is useful. Recent books and papers are following Sheehan's rubrik, categorizing "being" into (1) objective entities, (2) things as phenomenologically meaningful, and (3) the opening that makes meaning possible.

> transcendental idealism

I wrestle with this one. Does beyng ("how the open opens up") end up with the same ontological status as geometry? It only exist when dasein opens up? Or is beyng out there, like the perfect form of the triangle, waiting for someone to notice?

 

To your last question I think we have to respond first with Sein und Zeit: Being (Sein) exists only insofar as it is understood, since in order to exist it must either be an entity, or it must somehow be discoverable in an entity. (Here is it is important to underscore that this claim about the ontic instantiation of Sein in an entity which understands it is not the same as the obvious claim that "any entity's Being is discovered in that entity" since in the former claim we are talking about Sein überhaupt ---Being overall, and not any one of its modes such as vorhandenheit, zuhandenheit, or Existenz). But *your* question is not about Being (Sein) but about Beyng (Seyn). With regard to the latter we must say with the later Heidegger (recall the first two pages of the 1962 Zeit und Sein as they inaugurate the attempt to think Being WITHOUT beings) that Seyn never exists. Beyng remains what is unthought in Being, thereby bringing Being into its own. How does this square with geometry? The ideal Being of the "perfect triangle," whether we are Kantian and say it is a constructed concept or we are Platonists and consider it to be self subsisting, both forms are intelligible as a result of mind (either the Kantian pure form of outer intuition or the Platonic Noemata of Noesis). Heidegger's Seyn --which is the ownmost of Sein --is precisely not intelligible and yet something we must give thought to (cf. the "actual whereabouts of Being" located in a "poetry that thinks" from Aus Der Erfahrung des Denkens).
 

So beyng is not a thing/entity, but that which makes meaningful things possible.
Similarly, geometry is that which makes triangles possible, as mathematical shapes.

Both are conditions for the possibility of things.

Dasein is the means that makes beyng happen.
Meno was a means that made geometry happen.
 

I think on a basic, formal level the analogy with geometry works only to illustrate that in both instances there is a condition for the possibility of entities involved. And yet, even here the attempted proportionality breaks down precisely because it rests on a prior act of formalization which, while perhaps suitable for Geometry, distorts Beyng to the extent of precluding it. Beyng is no formal condition. But lets look at the analogy more closely to see if and where its joints may come unhinged.
First, what is the proper analogue to the claim "geometry is that which makes triangles possible, as mathematical shapes"? It seems to me that we would have to say "Ontology is that which makes entities possible, as entities disclosed in their Being". Disregarding whether this last statement is even true, the sense of making possible is obviously not the same as the way Being makes beings --and indeed ALSO their meaningful encounter---possible.
In order, then, to make this analogy work, we should rather state what functions in Geometry as a condition for the possibility of geometrical entities (as in your "perfect triangle") antecedently given in the content of geometry. Thus we must decide whether we are platonists of the Meno or Kantians etc in order to formulate are analogy. But lets choose Plato for a minute since u seem to have done so above. The analogy must then read: Just as the the Form of the Triangle makes triangles possible, so too does Sein make beings possible. Thus the Form and Sein are analogous here. And this is why I brought up the way Sein--due to its relation to Seyn --is radically different then Form. The analogy thus breaks down on a deeper level because Form is not Form without having the essential characteristic of being intelligible. The divided line situates it as the correlate of Noesis. Sein is precisely not itself when it is intelligible; Sein itself is Seyn as what has never yet been thought. Seyn is not a condition, since it must be thought WITHOUT beings, and a condition is obviously related to what it conditions. This non-related trait of Seyn is also why the later Heidegger eventually must think a difference that is other than ontological difference.
To your last formulation then: Meno makes geometry happen by engaging in a Noetic relation with the which is the condition for Geometry and its objects...namely the Forms of those objects (which are more intelligible than the objects themselves). Furthermore these forms do not make Meno himself possible. What about the analogy with Dasein. Dasein makes ontology possible. This is because Dasein's very existence is this possibility...the possibility of understanding Sein. Just as the Form is the condition for the possibility of understanding either it or individual traingles, Sein is the condition for the possibility of understanding it or beings. Now because the possibility of understanding Sein or entities is precisely what Dasein is, Sein is the condition for the existence of Dasein. The same is surely not true of the Form of the Triangle and Meno. Furthermore Sein is incalcuably different because of the manner in which it essences as Seyn, which is neither intelligible nor a condition for intelligibility.
 

> Now because the possibility of understanding Sein or entities is precisely what Dasein is, Sein is the condition for the existence of Dasein. The same is surely not true of the Form of the Triangle and Meno.

Yes, that's where the analogy breaks down.

And I gather that is why: "'paradigm shift' is really just the attempt to fit the round peg of Heidegger's denkweg into the square of transcendental idealism."

Yet, Sheehan's gathered a remarkable collection of MH quotes that correspond to the paradigm, that makes MH intelligible, even though that's not the whole of what MH said. There go humans, again, fooling themselves that shyte makes sense.



 

"There go humans, again, fooling themselves that shyte makes sense."

Perfectly put. As long as we equally don't go fooling ourselves into thinking shyte doesn't make sense.