P&F; Prof. Boedeker; worksheet on Being and Time, sections 3-7
1 (back to the previous reading assignment): What is the “exemplary being” (p. 5, p. 7)? What is
it exemplary for? Why does Heidegger in his later note in the margin (last footnote on p. 5) say
that the term “exemplary” is “misleading”?
2. Why is the question of being not “a matter of free-floating speculation about the most general
generalities”, but rather “the most basic and at the same time the most concrete question” (p. 7)?
3. Try to explain the three kinds of “priority” that Dasein has (pp. 11f).
4. What does Heidegger mean when he says “Dasein is ontically ‘nearest’ to itself, ontologically
farthest away; but pre-ontologically certainly not foreign to itself” (p. 14)?
5. What is a de-construction of the history of ontology (section 6) – what Heidegger elsewhere
calls a “phenomenological de-construction”? What does such a de-construction contribute to the
positive task of a phenomenological description of being?
6. What are the various ways in which being “does not show itself initially and for the most
part”, and what difficulties does this present for a phenomenological ontology? (See pp. 31-33).