Being and Time (1927) remains Heidegger's best-known and most
influential work. Despite its heavy Teutonic tone and tortuous
style (especially in the English translation), it can seem to bring a
breath of fresh air to traditional philosophical puzzles. Heidegger's
.insight there is that many of the knots in thinking that characterlize
philosophy are due to a particular way of understanding the
Inature of reality, an outlook that arose a~ the daw~ of Wester,n
[history and dominates our thought to this day. This outlook IS
what Dorothea Frede in her essay calls the "substance ontology":
the view that what is ultimately real is that which underlies
properties - what "stands under" (sub-stantia) and remains continuously
present throughout all change. Because of its emphasis on
enduring presence, this traditional ontology is also called the
"metaphysics of presence." It is found, for example, in Plato's notion
of the Forms, Aristotle's primary substances, the Creator of
Christian belief, Descartes's res extensa and res cogitatis, Kant's
noumena, and the physical stuff presupposed by scientific naturalism.
Ever since Descartes, this substance ontology has bred a covey
of either/ors that generate the so-called problems of philosophy:
either there is mind or everything is just matter; either our ideas do
represent objects or nothing exists outside the mind; either something
in me remains constant through change or there is no personal
identity; either values have objective existence or everything
is permitted. These either/ors layout a grid of possible moves and
countermoves in a philosophical game that eventually can begin to
feel as predictable and tiresome as tic-tac-toe.