“Nothing” in Function: Heidegger’s Ontological Difference

Abstract

This paper examines the role and function of Nothing in Heidegger’s understanding of philosophy as metaphysics, contending that Heidegger’s treatment of Being and Nothing are equiprimordial with respect to the ontological difference. That is, the ontological difference concerns not only the difference between beings and Being but also the difference between beings and Nothing. I base my examination on two main moments. First, Nothing is interrogated with respect to the transcendence it enables; featuring the field beyond beings. There, the basic relation between metaphysics, Nothing and Being are explored chiefly by means of Heidegger’s revival of the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” (why-question). Following from the first one, the second part tackles anxiety to its center as the very phenomenon through which Nothing itself comes to the fore. The paper in its culmination argues that the why-question and the Nothing it reminds Dasein of, functions as an existential trigger, and an ontological threshold, respectively for revealing Dasein’s potentiality-for-authenticity and the inherent-transcendence that occupies the open field which signifies the ontological difference.