Being articulate: Rede in Heidegger’s Being and Time

Abstract

Being and Time’s emphasis on practical activities has attracted much attention as an approach to meaning not modelled exclusively on language. However, understanding this emphasis is made more difficult by Heidegger’s notion of Rede (‘Articulacy’ or ‘Discourse’), which he routinely characterizes as both language-like and basic to all disclosure. This paper assesses whether this notion can be both interpreted coherently and reconciled with Heidegger’s emphasis on intelligent nonlinguistic behaviours. It begins by identifying two functions of Articulacy–the demonstrative and articulatory–and a potential source of incoherence in Heidegger’s analysis. Having reviewed some standard approaches to ..