Jud Evans 2004

               The Three Psychopathies of Heidegger's Ontological Difference.

In the weird metaphysical grotesquerie which constitutes Heidegger's  so-called "ontological difference," the Philosopher of Nazism distinguishes between an entity (das Seiende) and the being (das Sein) of an entity. He calls this distinction the "ontological difference." An entity, [a being] for Heidegger is on the one hand, anything that is or can be, whether it be physical, spiritual, or whatever -  for example, God, human beings, socialism, and the number nine  are all entities.
On the other [ontological] hand, he posits the "Being" of an entity, which has to do with the so-called "is-ness" or "existence" of whatever is. For him, "Being" designates what an entity is or entities are, how it/they is/are, and the fact that it/they is/are at all.


                                    THE FIRST PSYCHOPATHY
                                       THE MEANING OF THE WORD "ENTITY.

Heidegger's deranged insistence on his own idiosyncratic meaning of the word "entity*, as being anything that is or can be, whether it be physical, spiritual, or whatever. For example, God, human beings, socialism, and the number nine are all entities according to Heidegger.

      The fact that the majority of mankind think differently means nothing to him. For the common man, the average Joe, the word "entity" means: "That which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence* (living or nonliving) like The Archbishop of Canterbury of The Eifel Tower, and is not to be confused when used in the "corporate" sense, when it is coupled with an adjective such as "business" as in: a "business entity," which is a technical term, and means something entirely different - a body corporate (a company), a corporation sole (an ongoing paid office, for example -  a bishopric, a body politic, a partnership, an unincorporated association or body of persons, a trust, or a superannuating fund. This is in direct conflict with the dictionary definitions in all human languages.


                    THE SECOND PSYCHOPATHY
THE "BEING" OF AN "ENTITY AND HIS INABILITY TO GRASP THE "IS-MECHANISM."

"The being of an entity, * on the other hand, for Heidegger has to do with the "is" of whatever is. "Being" designates what an entity is, how it is, and the fact that it is at all. Here Heidegger is TOTALLY confused, for he already admits in "Basic Concepts" that he has no idea at all what "is" is.

(A) "But wherein lies the "is"? What does it mean, what does it consist in, that the weather "is" and that it "is" fine? The fine weather — that I can be glad about, but the "is"? What am I to make of it?"

(B) "But the "is" -where in all the world am I supposed to find it, where am I supposed to look for something like this in the first place?

(C) "The leaf is green. " I find the green of the leaf in the leaf itself. But where is the "is"? I say, nevertheless, the leaf "is"- it itself, the leaf. Consequently the "is" must belong to the visible leaf itself. But I do not "see" the "is" in the leaf, for it would have to be coloured or spatially formed. Where and what "is" the "is"?

Finally Heidegger, utterly bewildered,  admits defeat and washes his hands of any further attempts at an understanding of "is."

(D) "Let's stay with beings; wanting to think about the "IS" "is" mere quibbling. Or instead if I intentionally steer clear of a simple answer to the question as to where the "is" can be found." Martin Heidegger. "Basic Concepts."


                       THE THIRD PSYCHOPATHY
                  HEIDEGGER'S CONFUSED COALESCENCE OF "PURE" EXISTENCE
                                             AND EXISTENTIAL MODALITY.

The existential modality of an entity, on the other hand, has to do with the "is" of whatever is instantiated by the nominative indication of the denotatum. For example: "The apple is red." "Being" for Heidegger designates an additional ontological dimension, (a) what an entity is, (an apple) (b) how it is, {red} and (3) the ("pure") fact that it is at all. This is his high point of confusion, for the fact that it is at all [its "pure" existence] is a chimaera, for no entity is a thing at all without being the entity it is, and the way it is. So the fact that "it is at all" [its "pure" existence] is an ontological redundancy.

    NO entity can exist "purely" (as an an ideal - featureless template - a stripped being - an esse expoliatum) without existing in a particular fashion, way, form, combination of states or modalities, or without what the scholastics referred to as an "essence," or "properties," for otherwise it would be nameless - a nameless non-existing unspecified non-entity.

      Heidegger's risible ontological difference simply recapitulates the esse expoliatum banality of traditional religion and philosophy. The medieval scholastics, for example, had already clearly distinguished between ens and esse, just as the ancient Greeks before them had distinguished between to on and ousia. But Heidegger gives this tradition a "phenomenological" dimension, and switches the understanding of "Being" from the mere "thereness" of entities, their simple existence in space and time (this is what he calls Vorhandenheit, [Existing-ness] the "mere presence" of entities).

     Obviously Medieval/Scholastic thinkers were aware of this notion of the modal aspect of the ‘be’ conjugation, but only did so with reference to a distinction between ‘being’ and ‘existence,’ within the assumption that ‘being’ refers to all the possible modes of a thing's existence, whereas ‘existence,’ refers only to the ‘mere fact’ that it exists, and hence the second is only a ‘lowly predicate.’

     In other words, ‘Being’ refers to ‘that by which something exists,’ the underlying "substance" which makes entiatic reality possible, and ‘existence’ tells us ‘whether it exists,’ as the basis of the Latin distinction between essentia and esse respectively.


     Heidegger, a stunted product of the Jesuit seminary where he spent his formative years was never able to grasp that this distinction is a grotesque product of the a warped ontological imagination, which stemmed from his original inability to understand "is."

His eventual cringing recognition of his incompetence, which he amazingly committed to paper in the manner of probably the most humiliating  philosophical public confession of frustration, ignorance  and defeat in academic history,  was his  Ontological Battle of Waterloo.

Jud Evans