Question

Heidegger is at times very critical / skeptical of later generations inheriting and applying the traditional Greek ontological frameworks. Chaos (χάος), as an unordered void state in cosmogonies in antiquity, were not explicitly addressed in Being in Time, though perhaps we can triangulate Heidegger's position by parsing through some of the core tenets.

On the one hand, all the neologisms: Dasein itself, de-distancing, being-in-the-world and with-Others seem to be necessary for the meta ontology Heidegger appears to be laying out in Being and Time, and would not be viable in chaos.

On the other hand, I could also interpret chaos as a special case of Being. Heidegger's notion of concealment seems relevant here. The universe self-conceals as we go back in time, until everything truncates to chaos. Presumably this would still constitute Being, but not Dasein. Another notion that seems helpful here is Heidegger's fixation on the primordial. It seems odd to me that if Heidegger advocates taking the more primordial approach to experiencing equipment and such, then why does it have to ever stop? As we get more and more primordial, we would again arrive at chaos, if we were to follow the logic ad absurdum.

Answer 1

Martin Heidegger's phenomenology, centered around the nature of human being, emphasizes the importance of the world and being-in-the-world. He may be critical of later generations inheriting and applying the traditional Greek ontological frameworks that do not consider the world. While chaos is not explicitly addressed in Heidegger's work, it can be interpreted in different ways, either as incompatible with the core tenets of his philosophy or as a special case of Being. The focus on the primordial does not imply a progression towards chaos.

Step-by-step explanation:

Martin Heidegger's phenomenology focused on the nature of human being, arguing that being cannot manifest without a world. He proposed that abstract ideas don't reveal much about being since they are not in the world. Therefore, it can be inferred that Heidegger would be critical of applying traditional Greek ontological frameworks that do not consider the world and being-in-the-world.

While chaos as an unordered void state in cosmogonies in antiquity is not explicitly addressed in Heidegger's work, it can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, the core tenets of Heidegger's meta ontology, such as Dasein, being-in-the-world, and with-Others, would not be viable in chaos. On the other hand, chaos can be seen as a special case of Being, as Heidegger's notion of concealment suggests. However, the focus on the primordial in Heidegger's philosophy does not mean that it leads to chaos as a logical conclusion.