Heidegger: out of the fog

Reading Heidegger does't plunge me into fog in quite the same way as it used to. There must be some understanding of phenomenology percolating its way into me. I'm thinking of using these two extracts to head up my chapter on using phenomenology in my research:

The question of the meaning of Being is the most universal and the emptiest of questions, but at the same time it is possible to individualize it very precisely for any particular Dasein. If we are to arrive at the basic concept of ‘Being’, and to outline the ontological conceptions which it requires and the variations which it necessarily undergoes, we need a clue which is concrete. (Heidegger, 1962: 63)


Thus, to give a phenomenological description of the ‘world’ will mean to exhibit the Being of those entities which are present-at-hand within the world, and to fix it in concepts which are categorical. (Heidegger, 1962: 91)

From vagueness to distinctness

I'm glad I read Robert Sokolowski's book "Introduction to Phenomenology".  I can feel myself moving from a position of vagueness to a position of distinctness, although I am still on that journey - I haven't arrived yet.   Vagueness can be characterised by half-formed thoughts that are inchoate - somewhere between ignorance and error.  "Contradiction deals with the form of judgements, incoherence deals with their content, and both can occur in the fog of vagueness" (p107). The good thing about this is that it is normal to move from a position of vagueness on the way to distinctness. As one continues to grapple with a domain of knowledge, the contradictions and incoherences are flushed out and one's thinking and reasoning becomes distinct.