“Higher than Actuality” – The Possibility of Phenomenology in Heidegger

Abstract

This paper proceeds from a schematic analysis of Heidegger’s notion of ‘possibility’ to consider the methodological significance of Heidegger’s conception of what is essential in phenomenology as inhering not “in its actuality as a philosophical ‘movement’”, but in the understanding of phenomenology “as a possibility”. In conclusion, the paper points to the efficacy of possibility and its mode of fulfilment as radically different from the actualization of latent potentiality.