Constructing a cultural ontology I reject the primordiality of everydayness, presupposed by Heidegger, in order to reveal the cultural constitution of all ways of being, from everyday life to the most unusual activities of individuals and communities. The cultural constitution of being is displayed with the help of the idea that meanings, i.e., references, senses and values , are structures of all ways of being. In the following exposition the cultural constitution of being is analyzed in its interrelations with the (...) commonality of being, its temporality, and historicity. (shrink)

My project of cultural ontology aims at a specific modification of Heidegger’s ontology of being, which enables the analysis of historical communal being and the cultural nature of all ways of being. In the first part I shall consider: the motives for using an expression ’cultural ontology,’ arguments for the necessity of overcoming phenomenological analysis toward ontological philosophizing, and reasons for going beyond the analytic of Dasein toward ontological analysis of communities and human history. A sociohistorical ontology must be, finally, (...) transformed into a cultural ontology because all ways of being, human and non-human alike, are cultural in their constitution. As a starting point for the ontological exposition of culture I also discuss pre-ontological, e.g. scientific, views of culture and take up the question whether a cultural ontology can be useful for them. (shrink)