In search of instrumentality : the conception of action in being and time

This article examines the analysis of action in Division 1 of Being and Time to suggest that Heidegger makes a distinction between different kinds of action depending on their ends. But the ends of action are determined exclusively as the final ends of causality, never as instrumental ends. The article examines the effects of this move. It demonstrates that the concealment of the instrumental ends deprives Heidegger’s conception of action of any sociopolitical import, undercuts the distinction between inauthenticity and authenticity, and undermines the determination of theoretical knowledge.