INTRODUCTION
§1. The title "Ontology"[1]*
As comments on the first indication of the theme of facticity. Initial description: ontology.[2]
"Ontology" means doctrine of being. If we hear in this term only the indefinite and vague directive that, in the following, being should in some thematic way come to be investigated and come to language,[3] then the word has performed its possible service as the title of the course. However, if ontology is regarded as designating a discipline, one belonging, for instance, within the field of inquiry of Neo-Scholasticism or within that of phenomenological Scholasticism and the directions of academic philosophy influenced by it, then the word "ontology" is not as a course title fitting for what our theme and manner of treating it will be in the following.
If on top of that one takes "ontology" to be a rallying motto for the now popular attacks on Kant and, more precisely, on the spirit of Luther and, in principle, on all open questioning not frightened in advance by possible consequences—in short, ontology as the alluring call to a slave revolt against philosophy as such—then the title of this course is completely misleading.
The terms "ontology" and "ontological" will be used only in the above-mentioned empty sense of nonbinding indications. They refer to a questioning and defining which is directed to being as such. Which sort of being [Sein][4] is to be questioned after and defined and how this is to be done remain utterly indefinite.
In preserving a memory of the Greek word ὄν [being], "ontology" at the same time means that epigonic treatment of traditional questions about being which proliferates on the soil of classical Greek philosophy. Though traditional ontology claims to deal with general definitions of being, it actually has a definite region of being before its eyes.
In its modem usage, the word "ontology" means as much as "theory of objects" and indeed one which is in the first place formal. In this respect, it coincides with ancient ontology ("metaphysics").
However, modern ontology is not an isolated discipline, but rather is connected in a peculiar manner with what is understood by phenomenology in a narrow sense. It was in phenomenology that a fitting concept of research first emerged. Ontology of nature, ontology of culture, material
* Bracketed notes will be found in the Endnotes on the Translation. Footnotes designated by symbols are provided by the translator.