Heidegger LetterOnhumanism1949

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    Surely the questions raised in your letter would have been better an-swered in direct conversation. In written form thinking easily loses itsflexibility. But in writing i t is difficult above all t o retain the multidi-rnensionaliry of the realm peculiar to thinking. T h e rigor of thinking: incontras t to th at o f the sciences, does no t consist m erely in an artificial, tha tis, technical-theoretical exactness of concepts. I t lies in the fact that sayingremains purely in the element of the m t h of' being and lets the simplicityof its manifold dimensions rule. O n the othe r hand , written compositionexert5 a wholesome pressure toward deliberate linguistic formulation. To-day I would like to grapple with on ly one of your questions. Perhaps itsdiscussion will also shed some light o n the others.You ask: Co m m ent redonner un sens au m ot 'Humanisme'? m o wcan we restore meaning t o the word humanism ?] T h is question proceedsFrom your intention t o retain the word humanism. I wonder whether tha tis necessary. r is th e damage caused by all such terms still n o t sufficientlyobvious? T rue, -isms have for a long tim e now been suspect. But themarket of public opin ion continually dem ands new ones. W e are alwaysprepared to supply th e dem and. Even such nam es as logic, ethics,and physicsn begin to flourish only when originary think ing comes to anend. During the time of their greatness the G reeks thou gh t without suchheadings. T h e y did no t even call thinkingUphilosophy. Th ink ing com es t oan end when itsli ps ou to fit s element. Th ee lem en t is what enables thinkingto be a thinking. T h e element is what properly enables: it is th e enabling[dasVm o gm ] . t embraces think ing and so brings i t into its essence. [ ~ R ]Said plainly, thinking is the thinking of being. T h e genitive says someth ingtwofold. T hink ing is of being inasmuch as thinking, propriatedb by being,helongs to being. At the same time thinking is of being insofar as thinking,belonging to being, listens to being. As the belonging to being th at listens,thinking is what it is according to its essential origin. Th in k in g is hissays: Being has embraced its essence in a destinal manner in each case. Toembrace a thing o r a person in their essence means to love them , to favorthem. Thou gh t in a more original way such favoring means the bestowalof their essence as a gift. Such favoring [ M o p ] is the proper essence ofenabling [ V m o p ] which no t only can achieve this o r tha t bu t also canlet someth ing essentially unfold in its provenance, that is, let it be. I t is onthe strength of such enabling by Favoring that som ething is properly able

    First editir~n.19qp: Thinking already conceived here as thinkina o f the m t h o f b H g .irsf edition, 949: nly a pointer in th e Im gu sge of metnphysirs. For =Emipir, eventof appropriation. has k e n the p i d i n g wor of y thinking since 936.

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    t o he. T h i s enabling is what is properly possible [dns ~1.IogIichc l, hoseessence resides in favoring. Fro m this favoring heing enables thinking. T h eformer makes th e latter possible. Being is the enabling-favoring, the maybe [dm .\l s-licbc ]. As th e element, being is the quiet power of th efavoring-enabling that is of the possihle. O f course, ou r words rnb'qlicbIpossihle] and .\loqlichkeit [possihiliry], un de r the dominance of logic an dmetaphysics, are thou gh t solely in con trast to actuality ; tha t is, they

    are tho ught o n the basis of a definite he metaphysical nterpretationof heing as nmrs and potenrig, distinction identified with that betweenc.ri.rtentinand ementin.3 W h e n I speak of the quiet power of the possihleI (lo not m ean th e passiI~iIeof a merely represented possibilitns, nor potentiaas the essentia of an nmrr of e.ristmtin; rather, I mean being itself, which inits favoring presides over thinking and hence over the essence of humanity,and that means over i ts relation to heing. T o enable som ethin g here meansto preserve it in i t s essence, to m aintain it in its element.

    \%en thinking comes to an end by slipping ou t of its elem ent it replacesthis loss hy procuringa validity fo r itself as r f ~ v r s an ins trument of educa-tion and therefore as a classroom m atter [149] nd later a cultural concern.By and by philosophy becomes a technique for explaining from highestcauses. O n e n o longer thinks; on e occupies oneself wirh philosophy. I ncompetition w ith one another, such occupations publicly offer themselvesas -isms and y to o utdo on e another. T h e dominance of such terms isno t accidental. I t rests above all in the mo de rn age upo n the peculiar dic-tatorsh ip of th e public realm. However, so-called private existence is no treally essential, th at is to say free, human being. I t simply ossifies in a denialof the public realm. I t remains an offshoot that depends upon the puhlicand nourishes itself by a mere withdrawal from it. Nence it testifies, againsti t s own will, to its subservience t o the public realm. But because it stem sfrom the dominance of subjectivity th e puhlic realm itself is th e m etaphysi-cally conditioned establishment and authorization of the openness of h e i n pin the unconditional objectification of everything. Language thereby fallsinto th e service of expediting communication alon g routes where ohjectifi-cation he uniform accessihility of everything t o everyone -branches ou tand disregards all limits. In this way language comes un de r the dictatorshipof the public realm, which decides in advance what is intelligible and whatmust he rejected as unintelligible. \ f i a t is said in Being nnd Time 1927).sections 2 7 and 35 abo ut the they in no way means to furnish an inciden-tal contribution t sociology. Ju st as little does th e they mean merely th eopposite, understood in an ethical-existentiell way, of th e selfhood of per-sons. Rather, what is said there conta insa reference, tho ug ht in te n nso ft h e

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    man (homo) become human (hamanru)? T h u s hrrmanitas really does rem ainthe of such thinking. Fo r this is humanism: meditating and caring,th at hum an beings be human and no t inhum ane, inhuman, tha t is, outsidetheir essence. Rut in what does the humanity of the human being consist?It lies in his essence.Rut whence and how is the essence of the human being determined?

    a n dem ands that the human being's humanity he recognized and ac-knowled~ed.H e finds it in society. T h e social hum an is for him th enatural human. n society hum an nature, that is, th e totality of nat-

    ural needs (food, clothing, reproduction, economic sufficiency), is equablysecured. T h e Christian sees the hum anity o f man, th e humanitas of hmno,in conuadistinc tion to Deitas. H e is the human being of the history of re-dem ption who as a child of Go d hears and accepts the call of th e Fa the rin Christ. T h e human being is n o t of this world, since th e world, thou ghtin terms of P latonic theory, is only a temporary passage t o the beyond.

    Hrtmanitas, explicitly so called, was first considered and sm ven for in theage of th e R om an Republic. Homo hrrmanrrr was opposed to h ro lmhmu.Homo hrrmanru here m eans th e Romans, who exalted and honored Romanv i m s hrough the embodiment of the raifioia [education] taken over fromthe Greeks. The se were the G reeks of th e Hellenistic age, whose culturewas acquired in the [ ~ z ]chools of philosophy. It was concerned w ithmulitio et instinrtio in bonasanes [scholarship and training in good conduct].nar ioh thus understood was translated as hrmrrmitm. T h e gen uine roman-itm of homo romanzu consisted in such hamanitas. W e encounte r the firsthumanism in Rome: it therefo re remains in essence a specifically Ro manphenomenon, which emerges from the encounter of Roman civilizationwith the culture of late Greek civilization. T h e so-called Renaissance ofthe fourteen th and fifteenth cenhlries in Italy is a rmasccntia rmnanitatis. Be-cause romanitasis what matters, it is concerned with humanitasand thereforewith Greek xar8~h.Rut G reek civilization is always seen in its later formand th is itself is seen from a Roman po int o f view. T h e homo rumanrrr ofthe Renaissance also stands in opposition to homo bmlmnu. But now th ein-humane is the supposed harbarism of Goth ic Scholasacism in the M id-dle Ages. The re fo re a mtdirtm humm itatis, which in a certain way reacheshack to the ancients and thus also becomes a revival of Greek civiliza-tion, always adheres to historically understood humanism. For G erm ansthis is appa rent in the humanism of the eighteen th centu ry supported byWinckelmann, Go ethe, and Schiller. O n the othe r hand, Holderlin doesnot belong to humanism, precisely because he tho ug ht the destiny of theessence o f the human being in a more original way than humanism could.

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    ~~ fone understands humanism in general as a concern tha t the humanbeing become free for his humanity and find his worth in it, then humanismdiffers according to onek conception of the freedom and nature of thehum an being. So to o are there various paths toward the realization of suchT h e humanism of M a n does not need to return to antiquityany more than the humanism tha t S a m e conceives existentialism to be. Inthis broad sense Christianity too is a humanism, in that according to i t steaching everything depends on human salvation ( s n l t ~ n e t m t a ~he historyof the xgj] uman being appears in the context of the history of redemp-tion. However different these form s of humanism may he in purpose and inprinciple, in the m od e and means of their respective realizations, and in th eform of their teaching, they nonetheless all agree in this, tha t the hrrmanitarof hmno hzrrnantu is determined with r e p r d to an already established inter-pretation of nature, history, world, and the g round of th e world, that is, ofbeings as a whole.

    Every hum anism is either grounded in a m etaphysics o r is itself madeto be the ground o f one. Every determination of the essence of the hu-man heing that already presupposes an interpretation of beings withoutasking abou t th e t ru th of being, wh ether knowingly o r not, is metaphysi-cal. T h e result is that what is peculiar t o all metaphysics, specifically withrespect to the way the essence of the hum an being is determined, is tha t itis humanistic. Accordingly, every hum anism remains metaphysical. ndefining the humanity of the human being, humanism no t only does no task ahout the relation of being to the essence of the human being be-cause of its metaphysical origin humanism even impedes the question byneither recognizing nor understanding it O n th e contrary, the necessityand proper form of the question concerning the tru th of being, forgottenhin and through metaphysics, can come to light only if the question W ha tis metaphysics? is posed in the midst of metaphysics' dom ination. Indeed,every inquiry into heing, even the one into the truth of heing, must a tfirst introduce i t s inquiry as a metaphysicaln one.

    T h e first humanism, Roman hum anism, and every kind tha t has emergedfrom that time to th e present, has presupposed the most universal essenceof the human being to be obvious. T h e human being is considered to bean nsinnnl rationnle. T his definition is no t simply the Latin translation of

    I:irrt edition , 1949: Beinp and being itself at on ce enter the uolation ofrhr l l rsol~~trthrr~oph hic way of saying thinp. Yet so long ar the event of appropriation is held backthis r a y of raying thinp is unaroirlahlc.I IJl ttoi I>nrm nro Tmrlr f irst edition, rW:: Rut thic forgetcinp is to he rhoupht s t a m n ~frtmm .\i.r;rrcu in terms of the evcnt o appropriation.

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    the Greek :4 v ; h y ~ v p v , but rather a metaphysical interpretation o fit. Th is essential clefinition of the hum an being is [r54] no t false. But itis conditioned hy metaphysics. T h e essential provenance of metaphysics,an d not iust in limits, k c a m e questionable in Being and Time W ha t isquestionable is above all commended to thinking as what is t o be thought,hut not at all left to the gnawing do ubn of an empty skepticism.Metaphysics does indeed represent beings in their being, and so it also4thinks the heing of beings. But it does no t think being as such.5 does no tthink the difference between heing and heings. (Cf. O n the Essence ofGround [r929 ], p. 8;also K n n t a n d t b e h h / ~ n a f ~ ~ e t a p h ~ y . r i ~ ~ [ r ~. 225;and Being and The p. 230.) Metaphysics does not ask abou t th e tru th ofbeing itself. N o r does it there fore ask in what way the essence of th e humanbeing belongs to the tru th of being. M eta ph ys ia has no t only failed up t onow to ask this question, the question is inaccessible to metaphysics assuch. Being is still waiting for the time when I t itself will become thought-provoking to the human being. W t h regard to the definition of the essenceof the human being, however one may determine the ratio of the animnland the reason of the Living heing, whether as a faculty of principles ora faculty of categoriesn o r in some oth er way, th e essence of reason isalways and in each case grounded in this: for eve ty app rehending of beingsin their being, being in each case6 is already cleared, it is7 propriated inits truth. So to o with animal t, ov, an interp reta tion of life is alreadyposited that necessarily lies in an in terpre tation of beings as

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    being on the basis of animalitas and does no t think in the direction of hishrrmnnitfls.~ \ ~ ~ ~ a ~ h y s i c s c l o s e stse lfto the simple essential fact tha t the human beingessentially occurs in his essence only where he is claimed by being. Onlyfrom that claim has he found that wherein his essence dwells. Only fromthis dwelling does he have languagen as the home that preserves theecstatic for his essence. Such standing in the clearing of being call theek-sistence of human beings. T h is way of being is proper on ly t o the humanbeing. Ek-sistence so understood is no t only the ground of the possibilityof reason, ratio but is also tha t in which the essence of the h um an beingpreserves the source tha t determines him.Ek-sistence can be said only of the essence of the human being, thatis, only of the hum an way to be. For as far as ou r experience shows,only the hum an being is adm itted to th e destiny of ek-sistence. Th ere foreek-sistence can also never be thought of as a specific kind of living crea-ture among others granted that the human being is destined t o think theessence of his being and no t m erely to give accounts of the nature and his-tory of his constitution and activities. T h u s even what we attribu te t o thehuman being as a n i d i t a r on th e basis of the comparison with beastsn isitself grou nded in the essence of ek-sistence. T h e hum an body is some thingessentially 56 othe r than an animal organism. N o r is the er ro r of biolo-gism overcome by adjoining a soul to t he human body, a mind t o th e soul.and the existentiell to the mind, and then louder than before singing thepraises of the mind on ly to let everything relapse in to life-experience,with a warning tha t thinking by i ts inflexible concepts disrupts the flowof life and tha t tho ug ht of being distorts existence. T h e fact that physi-ology and physiological chemistry can scientifically investigate the hum anbeing as an organism is no proof th at in this organicn thing , tha t is, inthe body scientifically explained, the essence of th e hum an being consists.T h a t has as little validity as the notion tha t the essence of natu re has beendiscovered in atom ic energy. I t could even be that natu re, in the face itturns toward the human being's technical m astery, is simply concealing i nessence. Just as little as the essence of the human being consists in beingan animal organism can this insufficient definition of the essence of thehuman being be overcome o r offset by outfim ng th e human being with animmortal soul, the power of reason, o r the character of a person. In eachinstance its essence is passed over, and passed over on the basis of the samemetaphysical projection.M'hat th e human being is or, as it is called in the traditional languageo f metaphysics, th e essence of the hum an be ing- lies in his ek-sistence.

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    Rut ek-sistcnce tho ught in this way is n o t identical with the trad itionalconcept of eri i~t , .r~t in,hich means actuality in c o n aa st to th e m eaning o fessenth as possil,ility. In Being and 7 h e p. 4 2 this sen tence is italicized:The 'essence' o Dasein lies in its existence. However, he re the opposi-t ion heween e.ri.rtentia and essentia is n o t what is a t issue, because neithe r

    o f these metaphysical determ inations of being, let alone the ir relationship,is yet n question. Still less does the sentence contain a universal statem ent[ 57 ] ahout Dasein, in the sense in which this word came into fashion inthe eighteenth century, as a nam e for object, intending to express th emetaphysical concept of th e actuality of th e actual. O n th e contrary, th esentence says: the hum an bein g occurs essentially in such a way th at he isthe there ah Da'l , that is, the clearing of being. T h e being of theDa, and only it, has the fundam ental charac ter of ek-sistence, that is, of anecstatic inherence in the tru th of being. T h e ecstatic essence o f the hum anbeing consists in ek-sistence, which is different from the metaphysicallyconceived exhenria. Medieval philosophy conceives the latter as amul i -tar. Kant represents existenria as actuality in the sense of the objectivityof experience. Hegel defines existentia as the self-knowing Idea of abso-lute subjectivity. N ie m c h e grasps e.rirtentia as the eternal recurren ce of thesame. H er e it remains an open question whether through e.went ia - i nthese explanations of it as actuality tha t at first seem qu ite different- th ebeing of a stone o r even life as the bein g of plants and animals is adequatelythought. In any case living creatures are as they are without standing out-side their being as such and within the a u t h of being, preserving in suchstanding th e essential na ture of their being. O f all the beings tha t are, pre-sumably the mo st difficult t o think a bo ut are living creatures, because o nthe on e hand they are in a certain way most closely akin to us, and o n theoth er they are at th e same time separated from ou r ek-sistent essence byan abyss. However, it might also seem as though th e essence of divinity iscloser to us than what is so alien in o th er living creatures, closer, namely,in an essential distance that, however distant, is nonetheless m ore familiarto our ek-sistent essence than is our scarcely conceivable, abysmal bodilykinship with th e beast. Such reflections cas t a strange light upon the cur-ren t and therefore always still prem ature designation of the human being asasi?nnl mtionnle. Because plants and animals are lodged in the ir respectiveenvironments but ar e never placed freely int o the clearing of being whichalone is world, they lack language. [ 58] Rut in being denied languagethey are not thereb y suspended worldlessly in the ir environment. Still, inthis word environm ent converges all that is puzzling abou t living crea-tures. In its essence, language is not the utterance of an organism: nor is it

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    the expression of a living thing. N o r can it ever be th ou gh t in an essentiallyorre tway in term s of i t s symbolic character, perhaps not even in terms of

    the &aracter of signification. Language is the clearing-concealing adventof being itself.~k-s i s t ence ,houg ht in termsofecstasis, does not coincide with existenrian either form o r content. In term s of con tent ek-sistence means standingour nto the t ru th of being. fkihentia (existence)means in con trast amralitas,actuality as opposed t o mere possibility as Idea. Ek-sistence identifies thedetermination o f what the h uman being is in the destiny of au th . Exinenriais the nam e for the realization of something tha t is as it appears in its Idea.T h e sentence T he human being ek-sists is no t an answer to the questionof whe ther the human being actually is o r not; rather, it responds t o thequestion concerning the essence of the hum an being. W e are accustomedto posing this question with equal impropriety whether we ask what thehuman being is o r who he is. Fo r in the Who? o r the What? we a re alreadyon the lookout fo r som ething like a person o r an object. But the personalno less than the objective misses and misconstrues the essential unfoldingof ek-sistence in the history of being. T h a t is why the sentence cited fromBeinxnnd Time (p. 42 is careful t o enclose th e word essence in quo tationmarks. T h is indicates that essencen is now being defined ne ithe r from esseessentiae nor from esse cximtiae but rather from the ek-static character ofDasein. As ek-sisting, the human being sustains Da-sein in tha t he takes theDR, he clearing ofbe ing, intoUcare. But Da-sein itselfoccurs essentially asthrown. I t unfolds essentially in the throw of being as a destinal sending.But it would be the ultimate e rror if one wished to explain the senten ce

    ahout the human being's eksistent essence as if it were the S^] secular-ized transference to human beings of a thought that Christian theologyexpresses about G o d (De7t.r e.v ip.ni7~1m9 [G od is his being]:l); for ek-sistenceis not the realization of an essence, nor does ek-sistence itself even effectant1 posit what is essential. If we understand what Bemg and Time callsproiection as a representational positing, we take it to he an achievemento f subiectivity and d o not think it in the only way the understanding of he-

    ing in the contex t of the existential analysis of being-in-the-world canthought - namely, as the ecstatic relationh t o the clearing of being. T h e

    adequate execution and completion of this other thinking that abandonsslllliectivin. is surely made m ore difficult by the fact that in the puhlicationofh c i ~ g n ~ d7711rhe third division of the first pan , Time and Being, was

    Pl~rroi wrr;n~ Ti- rrh. l int edition. 947: Out : into the out of the out of one ano-th~.r the

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    held back (cf. Bril~qrnd 7>77~p 39). H er e ev ery thin g is reversed. T h edivision in question was held back because thinking failed in the adequatesavin&' of this turning [Kehre] and did not succeed with the help of thelanFmge of met;l~>h>sics. h e lecture "On the Essence of Tru th," thoughto u t an({ delivered in 1930 hu t n ot printed until 1943,provides a certaininsight into the thinking of the turning from "Being and Tim e" m "Timeand Being." T h is turn ing is n o t a change of standpointc from Being andEvrr hut in it th e thinking that was soug ht first arrives a t the locality ofthat dimension ou t of which Being nnd Titne is experienced, that is to say,experienced in"' th e fundamental experience of the ohlivion of being

    y way of contrast, Sar tre expresses the basic tenet of existentialism i n%is way: Existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taki nge .ri ~m tiaand essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which from Plato'stime on has said that essenria precedes existcnhn. Sartre reverses this state-ment. But the reversal of a metaphysical statem ent rem ains a metaphysicals ta te m e n a W it h it he stays with metaphysics n oblivion of the truth ofheing. For even if philosophy wishes to determine th e relation o f e.crm-tin and e.risentin in th e sense it had in medieval controversies, in Leibniz'ssense, o r in some other way, i t still [ I ~ o ]emains t o ask first of all fromwhat destiny of being this differentiationc in being as es s~ nnrtiae and enee.ri.rtentiae comes to appear t o thinking. W e have yet to consider why thequestion abo ut the destiny of being was never asked and why it could neverhe thought. O r is the fact that this is how it is with th e differentiation ofrssentifland exinottia not a s i p of forgetfulness of being? W e m ust presumetha t this destiny does not rest upon a mere failure of hum an thinking, letalone upon a lesser capacity of early W estern thinking. Concealed in its es-sential provenance, the differentiation of enentin (essentiality) and e . w m t i a(actuality) completely dominate s the destiny of Western history and of allhistory determined by Europe.

    Sa m e's key proposition a bout th e priority of existentinover essentia does,however, justifv using the nam e "existentialism" as an approp riate title fo r aphilosophy of this sor t. But th e basic ten et of "existentialism" has no th ingat all in com mo n with th e statem ent from Beingand T h e apart from t he

    Fi nt edition, ~ y t r ) : n terms o f the what and hnw of that which is thought-worthy andrlfrhinkinp.I 1:irstedition. r ~ ~ p.cnin~iaelfshou..1;im edition. 1 4q: I.r., of the qu stion of heinp.

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    fact that in k i n g and fne no statement ab ou t the relation of essentia ande,yjflnlt;n can yet be expressed, since the re i t is still a ques tion of preparingprecursory. As is obvious from what we have just said, that

    happens clumsily enough . W h a t still today remains to he said could perhapsbecome an impetus for guiding the essence of the human heing t o the po int&ere it thoughtfully attends to that dimension of the m t h of being that

    governs it. But even this could take place only to the honor ofbeing and for th e benefit of Da-sein, which the hum an being ek-sistindysustains; not, however, for th e sake of the human being, so that civilizationand culture throu gh human doings might be vindicated.

    But in ord er that we today may attain t o the dimension of the m t h ofbeing in o rde r to pon de r it, we should first of all make clear how beingconcerns the hum an being and how it claims him. Such an essential expe-rience happens to u s when it dawns on us that [ I ~ I ]he human being is inthat he ek-sisa. W ere we now to say this in th e language of the tradition,it would run: th e ek-sistence of the hum an being is his substance. T h a t iswhy in Bemg and Time the sentence often recurs, T he 'substance' of thehum an heing is existence (pp. 117 2 1 2 , 314 . But substance. thoughtin term s of the h istory of being, is already a blanket translation of oGnia, aword th at designates the presence of what is present and a t the same time,with puzzling ambiguity, usually means what is presen t iaelf. If we thinkthe metaphysical term substance in the sense already suggested in accor-dance with the phenomenological destruction ca m ed out in Being andime (cf. p. 2 9 then the statement T he 'substance' o the human heingis ek-sistence says noth ing else hu t that the way tha t th e human being in

    his proper essence becomes p resent to being is en ta ti c inherence in th eh ~ t hf being. T hr ou gh this determ ination of the essence of the hum anbeing the humanistic interpretations of th e human beingasnnfmalratimale,as person, as spiritual-ensouled-bodily being, ar e no t declared false andthrust aside. Rather, the sole implication is tha t the highest determinationsof the essence of the human being in humanism still d o no t realize theproper diLgnitylof the hum an being. To that extent the thinking in Beingand Time is ag-ainst humanism. But this opposition does no t mean that suchthinking aligns itself against the humane and advocates the inhuman, thatit promotes the inhumane and deprecates the dignity of the human being.Flumanism is opposed hecause it does no t se t the hrm,anitas of the hum anbeing high enough. Of course the essential worth of the human heing doesa 7 r s r rditinn 1949: The dignity prnper to him i e that has mme m h appropriate.al propriatcd in the event: prr priation and cvcnt of appropriation.

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    no t consist in his heing th e substance o f beings, as th e Subject am on gthem, so as the tyrant of being he may deign to release the beingnesso f beings in to an all to o loudly glorified objectivity.T h e human being is rather thrown by being itself into the tru th o fbeing, so that ek-sisting in this fashion he might guard th e m t h of being,

    in ord er tha t beings migh t appear in the ligh t of heing [r62] as th e beingsthey are. I-luman b e i n g d o not decide whether and how beings appear,whether and how God and the gods or history and nature come forwardinto the clearing of being, come to presence and depart. T h e advent ofbeings lies in the destinf of heing. But for humans it is ever a questionof finding what is fitting in their essence tha t corresponds to such destiny;for in accord w ith this destiny the human hein g as ek-sisting has to guardthe truth of being. T h e human being is the shep herd of being. I t is in thisdirection alone that emg and rne is thinking when ecstatic existence isexperienced as 'care (cf. sec tion qqc, pp. 226ff. .

    Yet being what is being? I t is I t itself. T h e thinking tha t is ro comemu st learn to experience th at and to say it. Being hat is n o t God andno t a cosmic gro und. Being is essentially fartherb than all beings an d isyet nearer to the human being than every being, be it a rock, a beast, awork of art, a machine, h e i t an angel o r God Being is th e nearest. Yet th enear remains far the st'^ from th e human being. Hum an heings at first clingalways and only to b e in g . But when think ing represents beings as beingsit no do uh t relates itself to being. In tru th, however, it always thinks onlyof beings as such; precisely not, and never, being as such. T h e question ofbeing always remains a question abo ut beings. I t is still no t at all what itselusive nam e indicates: th e question in the direction of being. Philosophy,even when it becomes criticaln through Descartes and K ant, always followsth e course of metaphysical representation. I t thinks from beings hack t obeings with a glance in passing toward being. For every dep arture frombeings and every retu rn to the m stands already in the light of being.

    Rut metaphysics recognizes the clearing of being ei ther solely as the viewofw ha t is presen t in outward appearance ifita)o r critically as what is seenin the perspectofcategorial representation o n the partofsubjectivity. T h i smeans that the tru th of being as the clearing itself remains concealed formetaphysics. [163] However, this concealment is not a defect of mera-physics but a treasure withheld from it yet held before it, the treasure of

    Pint edirinn 1940: Gathered sending ICt-rchirl.]: pthering of the epochs of he ing w ed vthe nee of Ictring-prrsencc.1;irst cdirion tq. y: Expanse: nor that o f an embracing hut rather of the lo nl ity o f appro-pri;~tic n;s the rxpancr of the clcnring.

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    it ow proper wealth. But the clearing itself is being. W ithin the destinyo being i n metaphysics th e c learing first affords a view by which what ispresent comes into touch with the hum an heing, who is present t o it, sothat the human being himself can in apprehending v o ~ i v )irst touch uponbeing jry~iv,Aristotle, Metapbyn cs 8 o). T h i s view first draws the per-spect toward it. It abandons itself t o such a perspect when apprehend ingha$ become a setting-forth-before-itself in the percqtio of the res cogitnnstaken as the srthiemim of cdtlido.But how - provided we really oug ht t o ask such a question a t all - howdoes being relate to ek-sistence? Being itself is the relation to the extentthat It, as the locality o f th e truth of being amid beings, gathers to itself andembraces ek-sistence in its existential, that is, ecstatic, essence. Because thehuman being as th e on e who ek-sists comes t o stand in this relation tha theing destines for itself, in that he ecstatically sustains it, that is, in caretakes it upon himself, he a t int fails to recognize th e nearest and attacheshimself to t he next nearest. H e even thinks that this is the nearest. Butnearer than the nearest, than beings, and a t th e same time for ordinarythinking farther than the farthest is nearness itself: the m t h of being.Fo rgem ng th e tr uth of being in favor of the pressing th rong of beingsunthought in their essence is what falling [Viaallen]means in Being undTime. T his word does no t signify the Fall of M an understood in a moral-philosophicaln and a t the same time secularized way; rather, it designatesan essential relationship of humans t o heing within being's relation t o theessence of the human being. Accordingly, the term s authenticity %ndu~nauthenticity, which are used in a provisional fashion, do not imply amoral-existentiell or an anthropological distinction bu t rather a relationthat, because it has been h ith er to concealed from philosophy, has yet t o hetho ug ht for the first time, an ecstatic relation of the essence of th e humanbeing to the truth of heing. But this [ 64] elation is as it is no t by reasonof ek-sistence; on the contrary, the essence of ek-sistence is destined'rexistentially-ecstatically from the essence of the tru th of being.T h e one thinR thinking would like to attain and for the first time m e sto articulate in Being and Tilne is something simple. As such, being re-mains mysterious, the simple nearness of an unobtrusive ~ revai lin g.T h enearness' occurs essentially as language itself. But language is not mere

    1 loto.r m i l ~ cf Tnath fimt edition. 947: Relation from out of restraint (withholding) o fre6tsrl (of wirhtlrawal).I I; lrrr rdition, ~qjy: I b he thought from cwt of what is proper m ap-propriarinkF rst cditicm. 1949: In the s ns o nearing: holding ready in clearinp, holrling astfe&warding.

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    speech, insofar as we represent the latter a t best as th e unity o f phoneme(or written character), melody, rhythm , and meaning (or sense). W e thinkof the phoneme and written character as a verbal body for language, ofand rhythm as i n soul, and whatever has to d o with m eaning asi n spirit. Ia'e usually think of language as corresponding t o th e essence ofthe human being represented as animal mtionale, that is, as the unity ofbody-soul-spirit. Rut just as ek-sistence and through it th e relation of th etruth of being to the hum an be ing emains veiled in th e hrnnanitasofhmnoorrirvalis, so does th e metaphysical-animal explanation of language cover u pth e essence of language in the history of being. According to this essence,language is th e house of being, which is propriared by being and pervadedhy being. And s o it is pro per to think the essence of language from itscorrespondence t o being and indeed as this corresponden ce, tha t is, as th ehom e of th e hum an being5 essence.

    But th e hum an being is no t only a living creatu re w ho possesses languagealongwith o th er capacities. Rather, language is th e house of being in whichthe human being ek-sists by dwelling, in that he belongs to the n t h ofheing, guarding it.So the point is that in t he determination of th e humanity o f the hum anbeing as ek-sistence wha t is essential is no t th e hum an being bu t being asth e dimen sion of the en tasis of ek-sistence. However, th e dimension is no tsom ething spatial in th e familiar sense. Rather, everything spatiala and alltime-space occu r essentially in the dimensionality th at being itself is.

    [165] Thi nk ing attends t o these simple relationships. It tries to find th eright word fo r them w ithin th e long-traditional language and g ram mar ofmetaphysics. But does such thinking- granted tha t ther e is something ina nam e till allow itself to be described as humanism? Ce rtain ly no t sofar as humanism thinks metaphysically. Certainly n o t if humanism is exis-tentialism and is represented by what S a m e expresses: pr6cisCment noussommes su r un plan oh il y a seulement des hommes w e re precisely in asituation where there are only human b e in g ] ( f i i ~ e n t i a l i ~sa Hrmmnim,p. 36). T h o u g h t from Being and Time, this should say instead: pr6cisCmentnous somm es su r un plan oB l y a pr incipalement I 'Ea e w e re preciselyin a situation where principally the re is being]. But where does lrplan comefrom and wh at is it? L Ew~ t leplan are the same. In Beingand rne (p. 2we purposely and cautiously sa)s il y a l'etre : there is / it gives [ rsgibt lheing. l y a manslates it gives imprecisely. F o r th e it that here Ugives s

    l h ~ o ~ rnrwinr of Trwth 6mr eclitinn ,047: Space neither alongsidetime or cliaolved intotime or ~Lrttuccd r m rime.

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    being itself. T h e gives names the essence of heing that is giving, grantingits ml th. T h e self-giving into the open , along with the open region itself,is being itself.~t the same time it gives is used preliminarily to avoid th e locutionbeing is ; for is is commonly said of some thing tha t is. We call such

    a th ing a being. But be ing is precisely not a being. If is is spoken, i t h o u t a closer interpretation of heing, then heing is all too easily repre-sented as a being after the fashion of the familiar s o m of beings that actas causes and a re actualized as effects. And yet Parm enides, in the early ageof thinking, says, tori y p ctvat for there is being. T h e primal mysteryfor all thinking is concealed in this phrase. Pe rhaps is can be said onlyof heing in an appropr iate way, s o that no individual being ever properlyis. But because thinking should be directed only toward saying being in

    i n truth, instead of explaining it as a particular being in term s of beings,whether and how being is must remain an open question for the carefulattention of thinking.T h e En~thp ~tvat f Parmenides is still un thought today. T h a t allowsus to gauge how things stand with the progress of philosophy. [166]W h e nphilosophy attends t o its essence it does not m ake forward s m de s a t all. I tremains where it is in order constantly to think the Same. Progression, tha tis, progression forward from this place, is a mistake that follows thinkingas the shadow that th inking itself casts. Because being is still unthought.

    eing and Time to o says of it, there is / i t gives. Yet one cann ot spec-ulate about this d y a precipitately and without a foothold. T h is thereis / t gives mles as th e destiny of being. Its history comes t o languagein the words of essential thinkers. Th ere fore the th inking tha t thinks intothe tru th of being is, as thinking, historical. T h e re is no t a systematicthinking and next to it an illustrative history of past opinions. N o r is there,as Hegel thought, only a systematics tha t can fashion the law of its think-ing into the law of history and simultaneously suhsume history into thesystem. T hought in a more primordial way, there is the history of he-ing to which think ing belongs as recollection of this history, propriated byit. Such recollective thoug ht differs essentially from the subsequent pre-sentation of history in the sense of an evanescent past. History does nottake place primarily as a happening. And i t s happen ing is no t evanescence.T h e happening of history occurs essentially as th e destiny of the tru th ofbeing and from it (cf. the lecture on Holderlin's hymn As when on feastd a y . . . [rgqx] p. 31 .Being comes to its destiny in tha t It, being, givesitself. But tho ug ht in term s of such destiny this says: I t gives itself andrefuses itself simultaneously. Nonethe less, Hegel's definition o f history as

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    L T T R Oh' ~IUMhUISh.1

    as such17 remains indispensable for the prospective approach of thinkingtoward the question concerning th e truth of being. In this way think ingattests to its essential unfolding as destiny. It is far from the arrogan t pre-sum pdon that wishes to begin anew and declares all past philosophy false.B U ~ hether the definition of being as the rrmcendempure an d simple re-ally does name th e simple essence o f the truth of being his and this aloneis the primary question for a thinking that at te m pa t o think th e truth ofbeing. T h a t is why we also say (p. 230) that how b eing u, i s m be understoodchiefly from its meaning [Sinn] thar is, from th e truth of being. Beingis cleared for th e human being i n ecstatic projection [ E n m u d . But thisprojection does no t create being..Moreover, the projection is essentially at hro w n projection. W ha t throwsin such projection is no t th e hum an being bu t being itself, which sends thehuman being into t he ek-sistence of Da-sein tha t is his essence. T h is des-tiny propriates as the clearing of being - which it is. T h e clearing grantsnearness t o being. In this nearness, in the clearing of the Da the humanbeing dwells as the ek-sisdng on e without yet being able properly to ex-perience and take over th is dwelling today. In the lecture o n Holderlin'selegy Hom ecoming (1943) this nearness o f' being, which the a ofDasein is, is thoug ht on th e basis of emg and Time it is perceived as spo-ken from the minstrel's poem ; from the experience of th e oblivion of beingit is called the homeland. T h e word is thou gh t he re in an essential sense,not paaiotically or nationalistically, but in terms of the history of being.T h e essence of the homeland, however, is also mentioned with th e inten-tion of think ing th e homelessness of contempora ry human beings from th eessence of being's history. N ie as ch e was the last to experience this hom e-Iessness. [169] From within metaphysics he was unable to find any othe rway out than a reversal of metaphysics. But that is the height of futility.O n the othe r hand, when Ho lderlin composes Homecoming he is con-cerned tha t his countrymen find their essence. H e does n o t a t all seektha t essence in an egoism of his people. H e sees it rather in the context of ahelongingness t o the destiny o f t h e Llkst. But even the W est is no t tho ug htregionally as the Occ ident in contrast to the O rien t, nor merely as Europe,but rather world-historically ou t of nearness t o the source. Ilk have stillsclrcely begun to think the mysterious relations t o the East tha t have com eto word in Holderlin's poetry (cf. The Ister ; also The Journey, thirdstrophe ff. . German is not spoken to the urorld s o tha t the world migh t

    reformed through the G erman essence; rather, i t is spoken t o the Ger-mans so that from a destinal helongingness to other peoples they m ight be-come world-historical along with them (see remarks on Hijlderlin's poem

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      Remembrance [ : - lndv~krn l . iilri?~geredotkdn 943 .p. 3 2). T h ehomelancio this historical dwelling is nearness t o being.such nearness, if at all, a decision may be made as t o whethe r and how

    ~ ; o dnd the pods withhold their presence and th e nigh t remains, whetherand how the day of the holy dawns, wh ether and how in the u surgence ofthe holy an epiphany of G od and the gods c n begin anew. Rut th e holy,Pwhich alone is th e essential sphere of divinity, which in turn alone affordsa dimension for the gods and for God , comes to radiate only when beingitself beforehand and after extensive preparation has been cleared and isexperienced in its t r u a ~ n l yhus does th e overcoming of homelessnessbe+ from being, a homelessness in which no t only human b e i n g hu t theessence of th e hum an being stumbles aimlessly about.

    Hom elessness so understood consists in the abando nm ent of b e i n g bybeing. H omelessness is the sym ptom of oblivion of being. Because of it thetruth ofb eing remainsunthou ght. T h e oblivion of being makes itself knownindirectly through the fan that the 11701 human being always observesand handles only b e in g . Even so, because humans can no t avoid havingsom e notion o f being, it is explained merely as what is most generaland therefore as something that encompasses b e in g , o r as a creation of theinfinite being, o r as the product of a finite subject. At th e sam e time beinghas long stoo d for beings and, inversely, th e latter for the former, the twoof the m caught in a curious and still unraveled confusion.

    As the destiny that sends tru th, heing remains concealed. But the destinyofwor ld is heralded in poetry, withou t yet becoming manifest as the historyof being. T h e world-historical thinking of Holderlin th at speaks out n thepoem Remembrance is therefore essentially more primordial and thu sm ore significant for the future than the m ere cosmopolitanism of Guethe.Fo r the same reason Holderlin's relation to G reek civilization is som ethin gessentially ot her than hum anism. W he n con fronted w ith death, therefore,those young Germ ans who knew abo ut Holderlin lived and thou pht som e-thing othe r than w hat the public held t o he the typical Germ an attirude.

    Hom elessness is com ing to be the destiny of the world. Hen ce it isnecessary to think th at destiny in term s of th e history of heing. LVhat Marxrecognized in an essential and significant sense, tho ug h derived from H egel,as the estrangem ent of the hum an being has n roots in the homelessnessof mo de m hum an beings. T h is homelessness is specifically evoked fromthe destiny of heing in the form of metaphysics, and throu gh metaphysics

    N ~Sominr qf rnith, irst edition. 947: eing inelf preserver and shclten inel f s thisnrilmess

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     s simultaneously entrenched and covered up as such. Because M am byexperiencing estrangem ent attains an essential dimension of history, the\lan ds t view of history is supe rior to that of o th er historical accounts. Butsince neithe r Husserl nor o far as I have seen till now S a m e recognizesthe essential importance of the historical in being, neithe r phenomenologynor existentialism enters that dimension within which a produc tive dialoguewith Marxism f irs t becomes possible.

    [ I , ' ] Fo r such dialogue it is certainly also necessary to free oneself fromnaive notions abou t materialism, as well as from the cheap refutations tha tare supposed to counter it. T h e essence of materialism does no t consist inthe assem on tha t everything is simply m atter hut rather in a metaphysicaldetermination according t o which every heing appears as th e material oflabor. T h e m odem metaphysical essence of labor is anticipated in Hegel'shmonrmolo~f   piritas the self-establishing process of unconditioned

    production, which is the objectification of the actual through th e hum anbeing, experienced as subjectivity. T h e essence of materialism is concealedin the essence o f technology, a bo ut which much has been written hu t littlehas been thought. Technology is in i t s essence a destiny within the his-tory of heing and of the tru th of being, a tru th tha t lies in oblivion. Fo rtechnology does no t go back to the r f ~ v l ; f th e Greeks in nam e only butderives historically and essentially from ~ f ~ v qs a mode of ~ ~ A ~ ~ E G E L v ,mode, that is, of rendering beings manifest. As a form of mth technol-o p s grounded in the history of metaphysics, which is itself a distinctiveand up to now the only surveyable phase of the history of being. N omatter which of the various positions on e chooses to ado pt toward the doc-trines of communism and to their foundation, from the point of view ofthe history of being it is certain that an elemental experience of what isworld-historical speaks ou t in it. U 'hoever takes communism on ly as aparty o r a Weltanschauung is thinking to o shallowly, just as thos who

    by the term Americanism mean, and mean derogatorily, nothing morethan a particular lifestyle. T h e danger into which Eu rop e as it has hithertoexisted is ever mo re clearly forced consists presumably in the fact above allthat its thinking once its glory s falling behind the essential course of

    1: trst eclition, 949: The danprr has in the meanrime m m e more clearlv to light. The~ol~a~~otthinkin~hackinto~era~h~inistakin~onaew form: ir is rh een do fp 'hi~ nso ~h ~in the sense of irs rr ~ m ~ le teiswlurion inro the sciences, whose un iw is likeaise unfoldinein n neu wag in ryberncrics. 7he p w e r of science nnnor be so pp ed hg an interventiono r offensive of rhnrrvcr kind. tm us e science h e lo n p in the prhered seninp-in-placeI ;c-st

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    a dawning world destiny that nevertheless in the basic traits of its essen-tial provenance remains European by definition. N o metaphysics, wh etheridealistic, materialistic, or Christian, can in accord with its essence, andsurely no t in [ 7 2 1 its Own attempts t o explicate itself, get a hold on thisdestin): and that means thoughtfully to reach and gath er together w hat inthe fullest sense of be ing now is.

    In the face of the essential homelessness of human beings, th e approach-ing destiny of the human heing reveals itself t o tho ug ht o n the h istory ofheing in this, that the human being find his way into the truth of beingand set ou t on this find. Every nationalism is metaphysically an anth ro-polofism, and as such subjectivism. Nationalism is n o t overcome th roug hmere internationalism; it is rather expanded and elevated thereby into asystem. Nationalism is as little broug ht and raised to hf rnmJit~y inter-nationalism as individualism is by an ahistorical collectivism. T h e latteris the subjectivity of human heings in totality. I t com pletes subjectivity'sunconditioned self-assertion, which refuses to yield. N o r can it be evenadequately experienced by a thinking that mediates in a one-sided fash-ion. Expelled from the trut h of heing, th e hum an being everywhere circlesaround himself as the animalmtionnle.

    But the essence of the human being consists in his being more thanmerely human, if this is represented as be inga rational creature. Moremust no t he understood he re additively, as if the traditional definition of thehuman being were indeed t o remain basic, only elaborated by means of anexistentiell postscript. T h e more means: more originally and thereforemore essentially in term s of his essence. But here som ethin g enigmaticmanifests itself: the hum an heing is in thrownness. T h is means that thehuman being, as the ek-sisting counterthrow [ G e p m a f l of being,' is m orethan nninral rnrionnle precisely to the exten t that he is less bound up withthe human being conceived from subjectivity. T h e hum an being is no t thelord of beings. T h e human being is th e shepherd of being. Hum an beingslose no th ing in this less ; rather, they gain in tha t they attain the truthof heing. 'I'hey gain the essential poverty of the shepherd , u~hose ignityconsists in [ 731 being called by heing itself into the preservation o f being'struth. T h e call comes as the throw from which th e thrownness of Da-sein

    Phtai ominr q F u i h li nt edition, 947: %.'hnt s it that now is now. n the era of thewill to will? \\ ha t now is, is uncontiitional neglect o f preservation ( I ' m ~ a h r l ~ ] ,hisword taken in strict sen% in terms of the hirrnry o f I~ein g:usnhr-10s [without presen-ndonl;cr,nvcmrlp: in terms ofdcstininp.

    I Finredition. 949:I n d ~ ~ r t r i a l s ~ r i e ~ a shesuhiect that provides the measure and thinkings politics.rirrt edition. lu+o: Bcttcr within Iteing qua event o f appropriation.

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    derives. In his essential unfolding within the history of being. the hum anbeing is the heing whose he ing as ek-sistence consists in his dwelling in thenearness of being. T h e human being is the neighb or of being.

    ~ u tas you n od ouh t have been wanting to rejoin for quite a while nowdoes no t such thinking think precisely th e hrrmnnitasofhmo h~rmanrrsDoest no t think hrrv~anitnsn a decisive sense, as no metaphysics has thought t

    or can think it? Is this no t humanism in the extreme sense? Certainly. I tis a humanism tha t thinks the humanity of the human being from nearnessto being. But at the same time i t is a humanism in which n o t the humanbeing but th e hum an being's historical essence is a t stake in its provenancefrom the m t h of being. But then does not the ek-sistence of the humanbeing also stand o r fall in this game of stakes? Indeed it does.

    In Being an d T in e (p. 38) it is said that every question of philosophyreturns to existence. But existence here is no t th e actuality of the egomp.to. Nei ther is it the actuality of subjects who act with and for eachother and s o become who they are. Ek-sistence, in fundamental con trastto every exirrentia and uexisrence,n is ek-static dwelling in th e nearness o fbeing. I t is th e guardianship, th at is, the care for being. Because there issomething simple to be tho ug ht in this thinking i t seems quite difficult tothe representational thou gh t that has been transmitted as philosophy. Butthe difficulty is n o t a matter of indulging in a special sor t of profundity andof building complicated conc epw rather, i t is concealed in the s tep hackthat lets thinking en ter into a questioning tha t experiences and lets thehabitual op ining of philosophy fall away.I t is everywhere supposed that the attempt in Being and Time endedin a blind alley. L e t us not com men t any further upon that opinion. T h ethinking that hazards a few steps in Being and Time [r7 ] has even todaynot advanced beyond tha t publication. But perhaps in th e meantim e it hasin on e respect come furthe r in to its ow n matter. However, as long asphilosophy merely busies itself with continually obstructing th e possibilityo f admittance into the matter for thinking, i.e.. into the tru th of being,it stands safely beyond any danger of shattering against the hardness oftha t matter. T h u s t o philosophizen about being shattered is separatedby a chasm from a thinking tha t is shattered. If such thinking were to

    fortunately for someone, no misfortune would befall him. H e wouldreceive the only gift that can come to thinking from being.Rut it is also the case that the matte r of think ing is no t achieved in thefact that idle talk ab ou t the truth o f beingn and the history of being isset in m otion. Everything depends upon this alone, that the a v t h of beingcom e to language and tha t thinking attain t o this language. Perhaps, then,

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    languaR requires much less precipitate expression than p rope r silence. Bu twho of us would want to imagine that hisattempts to thin kare a t hom eon the path of silence? At best, thinking could perhaps point toward thetruth of being, and indeed toward it as wh at is to be though t. I t would thusbe m ore easily weaned from m ere supposing and opin ing and directed tothe now rare handicraft ofwriting. T hing s that really matter, although theyare no t defined fo r all eternity, even when they com e very late still com e atthe right time.

    I%'l~etherhe realm o f the truth o f heing is a blind alley or w hether i tis the free space in which freedo m conserves its essence is something eachon e may judge after he himself has m e d t o g o the designated way, o r evenbetter, after he has gone a better way, that is, a way be fim ng the question.O n th e penultimate page of Being and f im (p. 437) stand the sentences:

    T h e conflirt with respect t o th e interpre tation of being (that is, therefore,not the interpretation of beings o r of the b eing of the human being) cann otbe settled, [r7 ] becaure it bas notyet becn kindled. And in th e end i t is n o ta question of 'picking a quarrel.' since th e kindling of the conflict doesdemand som e preparation. T o this end alone the foreg oing investigation isun de r way. Today after tw o decades these sentences still hold. Let us alsoin the days ahead remain as wanderers o n th e way into th e neighborhoodof being. T h e question you pose helps to clarify the way.

    You a sk Com ment redonner un sens au mot 'Humanisme'? Howcan som e sense be restored to the word 'humanism'? Your question n o tonly presupposes a desire to retain the word humanism bu t also containsan admission that this word has lost its meaning.

    It has lost it through th e insight that t h e es.ence of humanism is meta-physical, which now m eans tha t metaphysics no t only does no t pose th equestion concerning the truth o f being hut also obstructs the question, in-sofar as metaphysics persists in th e oblivion of being. But th e same thinkingthat has led us to this insight into th e questionable essence of humanismhas likewise compelled us to th ink the essence of th e hum an heing m or eprimordially. W ~ t hegard t o this m ore essential hrnnanitmof b m o b~ m an urthere arises the possibility of resto ring to the word humanism a historicalsense tha t is older than its oldest meaning chronologically reckoned. T h erestoration is no t to e understood as though the word humanism werewholly without meaning and a m e r e j a h u uorir [empty sound]. The hu-m m s m in the word points t o brrmanitnr, the essence of the human b e in gthe -ism indicates tha t the essence of the human being is meant t o etaken essentially. T h is is the sense that th e word humanism has as such.o estore sense to it can only mean to redefine the meaning o f t h e word.

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    ~h~~ requires that we first experience th e essence of the human being moreprimordiall\r; but it also dem ands th at we show to what extent this essencen its own way becomes destinal. T h e essence of [ 76] the human being

    lies in ek-sistence. T h a t is what is essentially ha t is, from being itself tissue here, insofar as being appropriates the human being as ek-sisting forFuardianship over the tru th of being into this truth itself. Hum anismn nowmeans. in case we decide t o retain the word. tha t the essence of th e hum an..being is essential for the t ru th of being, specifically in such a way tha t whatmatters is no t the human being simply as such. S o we are thinkin ga curiouskind of humanism. he word resuits in a name tha t is a nuaon It~cmdo[literally, a grove where no light penetrates].Should westill keep the nameuhumanismn fo ra hum anismnthat contra-dicts all previous humanism although it in n o way advocates the inhum an?h d eep i t just so that by sharing in the use of the name we might perhapsswim in the predominant cu rren ts, stifled in metaphysical subjectivism andsubmerged in oblivion of being? O r should thinking, by means of openresistance t o humanism, risk a shock that could for th e first time causeperplexity concerning th e hum nitm of hmno hum nru and its basis? In thisway it could awaken a reflection f the world-historical mom en t did no titself already compel such a reflection ha t thinks no t only abou t th e hu-man being but also about the nature of the hum an being, n o t only abo uthis nature but even more primordially about the dimension in which theessence of the human being, determ ined by being itself, is at home. Shouldwe not rather suffer a little while longer those inevitable misinterpretationsto which the path o f thinking in th e element of being and time has hithertobeen exposed and le t them slowly dissipate? T hese misinterpretations a re~ ~ a t u r a leinterpretations of what was read, or simply mirroring5 of whaton e helieves he knows already before he reads. T h e y all betray the samestructure and th e same foundation.

    Because we are speaking against humanismn people fear a defense of theinhum an and a glorification [r77] of barbaric hmtality. Fo r what is morelogical than that for somebody who negates humanism no thin g remainsbut the affirmation of inhumanity?

    Because we are speakingagainst logic people believe we are dem and ingthat the rigor of thinking be renounced and in its place the arbitrariness ofdrives and feelings be installed and thus that irrationalism be proclaimed9 true. For what is more Ulogical than that whoever speaks against theloaical is defending the alogical?Because we are speaking against values people are horrified at a phi-losophy tha t ostensibly dares to despise humanity's best qualities. For what

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     s more uloecalhan that a thinking t hat denies values must necessarilypro nounce everything valueless?Because we say that the being of th e human bein g consists in being-in-the-aarld people find tha t th e human bein g is downgraded to a merelyterresnial being, whereupon philosophy sinks in to positivism. For what ism ore logical than tha t whoever asserts the worldliness of hum an bein gholds only this life as valid, denies th e beyond, and renounces all Tran-scendence ?Because we refer to the word of Nietzsche o n the death of Cmdn peopleregard such a gesture as atheism. Fo r what is m ore logical than tha t who-ever has experienced th e dea th o f God is godless?Because in all the respects mentioned we everywhere speak against alltha t humanity deem s high and holy ou r philosophy teaches an irresponsibleand destructive nihilism. F o r what is m ore logical than that whoeverroundly denies what is truly in being puts himself on the side of nonbein gand thus professes the pure noth ing as the meaning of reality?

    W h a t is go ing on here? People hear talk ab ou t humanism, logic,values, world, and God. T h ey hear som ething ab ou t opposition mthese. T h e y recognize and accept these thin s 1781 as positive. But with

    hearsay- in a way that is n o t strictly deliberate hey imm ediately assumetha t what speaks against som eth ing is automatically its negation and thatthis is negative in th e sense of destructive. And som ewhere in eing mTime there is explicit talk of the phenomenological destruction. \U th th eassistance of logic and ratiooften invoked, people com e to helieve tha t what-ever is no t positive is n e g ti v e and thu s that i t seeks t o degrade reason andtherefore deserves t o be hranded as depravity. W e are so filled with logictha t anything that disturbs th e habitual som nolence of prevailing opinionis automatically reds ter ed as a despicable contradiction. W e pitch every-thing th at does n ot stay close to the familiar and heloved positive into thepreviously excavated pit of p ure negation, which negates e ve ry thin g endsin nothing, and s o consum mates nihilism. Following this logical course welet everything expire in a nihilism we inven ted for ourselves with th e aid oflogic.

    But does th e against which a thinking advances against ordinary opin-ion necessarilv point toward pure negation and the negative? T h i s hap-pens and then, to be sure , happens inevitably and conclusively, that is,without a clear prospect of anyth ing else only when o ne po sia in advancew h ~ ts mean t as the positive and on this basis makes an absolute andsimultaneously n eg ti v e decision a b u t the range of possible opposition toit

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    presupposed positive to gether with i ts position and opposition in which itis to be secure. By continually appealing t o the logical one conjuresu p the illusion tha t one is enteringst~ ightforw rdl~nto thinking when infact one has disavowed it.It oug ht to be somewhat clearer now that opposition to humanism inno way implies a defense of the inhuman h ut rather opens oth er vistas.

    Logic understands thinking to be the representation of beings in theirbeing, which representation proposes to itself in the generality of the con-cept. [ 79]But how is it with meditation on being itself, tha t is, with th ethinking that thinks the tru th of being? T h is thinking alone reaches theprimordial essence of Aiyo;, which was already obfuscated and los t in Platoand in Aristotle, the founder of logic. To think against logicn does no tmean to break a lance for the illogical bu t simply to trace in tho ug ht theAhyo< and its essence, which appeared in the dawn of thinking, that is, t oexert ourselves for th e first time in preparing for such reflection. O f whatvalue are even far-reaching systems of logic to us if, without really h a w i n gwhat they are doing, they recoil before the task of simply inqu iring intothe essence of A6yo

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    ~h~ referen e to being-in-the-world as the basic trait of the bzrmaniravof hmo b l lnn .r does not assert that the hum an being is merely a worldlycreamre understood in a Christian sense, thu s a creature tu rned away from~~d anti so cu t loose from Transcendence. \ f i a t is really meant by thisword would be more clearly called the transcendent. T h e transcendentis a supersensible being. T h is is considered the highest be ing in th e senseof the first cause of all beings. G od is thou ght as this first cause. How -ever, in the nam e being-in-the-world, world does no t in any way implyearthly as opposed to heavenly being, nor the worldly as opposed to thespiritual. For us world does no t a t all signi@ beings o r any realm of

    b e i n g hu t the openness of being. T h e human being is, and is human, in-sofar as he is th e ek-sisting one. H e stands ou t in to the openness of being.Being itself, which as the throw has projected the essence of the humanheing in to care, is as this openness. Thro w n in such fashion, th e hu-man being stands in the openness of being. 1 o rl d is the clearing ofbeing into which the hum an being stands ou t on the basis of his thro wnessence. Being-in-the-world designates the essence of ek-sistence withregard to the cleared dimension o u t of which the ek- of ek-sistence es-sentially unfolds. T h ou gh t in terms of ek-sistence, world is in a certainsense precisely the beyondn within ek ~ is te nce nd for it. T h e human beingis never first and foremost the hum an being on th e hithe r side of the world,as a subject, whether this is taken as I o r 14'e. N o r is he w e r simplya m ere subject that always simultaneously is related to objects, so tha t hisessence lies in the subject-object relation. Rather, before all this, the hu-man being in his essence is ek-sistent [ 11 into the openness of being, in tothe open region that first clears the between within which a relation ofsubject to ob ject can be.T h e statement th at the essence of the human being consists in being-in-the-world likewise contains no decision abo utwhe ther th e human being in atheologico-metaphysical sense is merely a this-worldly o r an other-worldlyCreature.115th the existential determ ination of th e essence of the hum an being,therefore, noth ing is decided abou t th e existence of God o r his non-being, no m ore than about the possibility o r impossibility of gods. T h u sit is not only rash hut also an error in procedure to maintain that the in-terpretation of the essence of the human being from the relation of hisessence to th e m t h of being is atheism. And what is more, this arbitraryclassification betrays a lack of careful reading. N o one bothers to noticethat in my essay On the Essence of Groun d 1929) he following appears

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    (,,, 2 ~ ote I : Thro ugh the ontological interpretation of Dasein as being-in-the-world no decision, wh ether positive o r ne p ti v e , is made concerninga possible being toward God. I t is, however, the case that th rough an illumi-.,tion of transcendence we first achieve nn adeqrcnte concept of Dnsein withrespect to which it can now he asked how the relationship of Dasein t o Gods ontologically ordered. If we think abo ut this remark too quickly, as is

    usually the case, we will declare th at such a philosophy does n o t decide ei-ther for or against the existence of G od. It rem ains stalled in indifference.~ h u st is unconcerned with the religious question. Such indifferentism

    falls prey to nihilism.Rut does th e foregoing observation teach indifferentism? W h y thenare particular words in the no te italicized and no t just random on es? Fo r

    no other reason than to indicate that the thinking that thinks from thequestion concerning the u u t h of being questions mo re primordially thanmetaphysics can. Only from th e tru th of be in g can th e essence of the holy hethought. [ ~ z ] nly from th e essence of th e holy is the essence of divinityto he thought. O nly in the light of the essence of divinity can it be tho ughto r said what th e word God is to signify. O r should we n o t first be ableto hear and understand all these words carefully if we are t o be permirtedas human beings, th at is, as eksistent creatures, t o experience a relation ofGod to human beings? H ow can the human being a t the present stage ofworld history ask a t all seriously and rigorously whethe r the god nears o rwithdraws, when he has above all neglected to th ink in to th e dimensionin which alone that question can be asked? But this is the dimension ofthe holy, which indeed remains closed as a dimension if the ope n region ofbeing is no t cleared an d in its cle ar in g is near t o humans. Perhaps what isdistinctive abo ut this world-epoch consists in th e closure of the dimensionof the hale [des Heilen] . Perhaps that is the sole malignancy [Unheil] .

    But with this reference the thinking that points toward the truth ofI)eing as what is to be thou gh t has in n o way decided in favor of theism. I tcan he theistic as little as atheistic. N ot, however, because of an indifferentattitude, huto utof res pe ct f o rt h e boundaries that have heen set forthin kingas such, indeed set ywhat gives itself to thinking as what is to be thought,1 . the truth of being. Insofar as thinking limits itself to i t s task it tlirectsthe human being at the present moment of the world's destiny into theprimordial dimension of his historical abode. W h e n thinking of this kindspeaks the truth o fh e in g it has entrusted itself to what is m ore essential thanI Finr edition. 1949: Clearing s clearing o self concealing vhelrcring.

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    all values and all types of heings. Th in k in g does no t overcome m etaphysiaby still higher, surm oun ting it, transcending i t somehow o r other;thinking overcomes metaphysics by climbing back down into the nearnessof the nearest. T h e descent, particularly where human beings have strayedinto suhjectivi&, is more arduous and more dangerous than the ascent.T h e descent leads t o the poverty of the ek-sistence of homo hmnamu? Inek-sistence [r83] the region of homoanimalis of metaphysics, is abandoned.T h e dominance of that region is the m ediate and deeply rooted basis for theblindness and arbitrariness of what is called biologism, bu t also of whatis known under the heading pragmatism. To think the truth of being a tthe same time means to think the humanity of homo btrmantu. W hat countsis htimanitm in the service of the truth of being, bu t with ou t humanism inthe metaphysical sense.

    But if htimanitm must be viewed as so essential to th e thinking o f being,must no t on to lo ~y herefore be supplem ented by ethics ? Is no t that ef-fort entirely essential which you express in th e sentence, Ce qu e je cherche

    faire, depuis long tem ps d i j i , c'est picise r le rapport de l'ontologie avecune Cthique possible [ W hat I have been uy ing to d o for a long time nowis to dete rmine precisely th e relation of onto logy to a possible ethics ]?

    Soon after Being and rne appeared a young friend asked me, M'henare you going t o write an ethics? W here the essence of the human being is tho ught so essentially, i.e., solely h o m the question concern ing th etruth of being, and yet witho ut elevating the human being t o the cen ter ofheings, a longing necessarily awakens for a peremptory directive and forrules that say how the human being, experienced from ek-sistence towardbeing, o ug ht t o live in a fitting manner. T h e desire for a n ethics pressesever more arden tly for fulfillment as the ohvious no less than the h iddenperplexity of human beings soars t o immeasurable heighm. T h e greatestcare must be fostered upon the ethical bond at a time when technologicalhum an beings, delivered ov er t o mass society, can attain reliable constancyonly by gathering and ordering all their plans and activities in a way thatcorresponds to technology.

    Xl'ho can disregard ou r predicam ent? Should we not safeguard and se-cure th e existing honds even if they hold human beings together ever sotenuously and merely for the present? Certainly. Rut does this need everrelease thoug ht from the task of thinking what still remains principally [184]to be th ou gh t and, as being, prior to all beings, is their guarantor and theirtn lth? Even further, can thinking refuse t o think being after the latter haslain hidden so long in oblivion bu t at the same time has made itself knownin t l ~ r resent lnornent o f worlcl history hy the up roo ting of all heings?

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    Refore we attempt to determine more precisely the relationship be-tween unntology and ethics we must ask what uontology and ethicsthemselves are. I t becomes necessary to ponder whether what can be des-igTlatedby hoth terms still remains near and p rope r to what is assigned to;hinking, which as such has t o think above all the truth of being.O f course if both onmlogy and ethics, along with all thinking inte rn s of disciplines, become untenable, and if ou r thinking therewith be-comes more disciplined, how then d o matters stand with the question abo utthe relation between these two philosophical disciplines?

    Along with logic and physics, ethics appeared for the first time inthe school of Plato. Thes e disciplines arose at a time when thinking wasbecoming philosophy, philosophy tarordpq (science), and science itselfa matter for schools and academic pursuits. In the course of a philosophyso understood, science waxed and thinking waned. Th ink ers p rior to thisperiod knew ne ither a logicn no r an ethics no r physics. Yet theirthinking was ne ithe r illogical nor immoral. But they did think tp~jots na dep th and breadth tha t no subsequent physicsn was ever again able toattain. T h e tragedies of Sophocles provided such a comparison is at allpermissible preserve the i,Oos in their sayings more primordially thanAristotle's lectures o n ethics. A saying of Heraclitus th at consists of on lythree words says something so simply that from it the essence of ethosimmediately com es to light.

    [185] T h e saying of Heraclitus (F ragment 119) goes: +4o; drv9p6xySa i l c~v . h is is usually translated, A man's character is his daimon. T h istmnslation thinks in a modem way, not a Greek one. +,Oos means abode,dwelling place. T h e word names the open region in which the hum an eingdwells. T h e open region of his abo de allows what pertains to th e essence ofthe human being, and what in thus arriving resides in nearness to him, t oappear. T h e abode of the hum an being contains and preserves the advent ofwhat belongs to the human being in his essence. According to Heraclitus'sphrase this is f iaipwv, the god. T h e fragment says: T h e human beingdwells, insofar as he is a human being, in the nearness of god. A story tha tr\ristotle reports Departilrw animalirm, A, 5, 645 a17ff.) agrees with thisf;agnlent of Heraclihls. It runs:

    I lg+xi .r tro; M y f r a t nphg roi l; tfvol ~ i z ~ i vTO^ ~ ~ O I ) ~ O I C V O I ) C V T I J ) [ E < Vl ;rG>. o tzerfii, zponr6vreg ~ ~ f i o vlirbv ~Jrpi,prvovxpb; r 4 v ~arqaav.. X ~ ; . E U Ehp a l ; r o i ~ ;~ i n t f v a rOappoi,vra;' ELvai yhi; xai tv ral i0 a Ofoi>; .~ I ~ ~ s t o n i c t o l d n f s ~ r m c t h i n ~ Ieraclirussai

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    stwd there inconsternarion aboveall because he encouraged them, theastoundedones, and called n hem t come in, with the words, For here too the gcds arepresent.T h e story cem in ly speaks for iaelf, bu t we may stress a few aspects.T h e gro up o f foreign visitors, in their im portunate curiosity abo ut th e

    thinker. are disappointed and perplexed by their first glimpse of his abode.T h ey believe they should meet the thinker in circumstances that, co ntrary tothe ordinary round of hum an life, w ery where bear traces of the exceptionaland rare and so of the exciting. T h e grou p hopes that in their visit to th ethinker they will find things that will provide material for entertainingconversation - a t least for a while. T h e foreigners who wish t o visit thethinker [r8 ] expect t o catch sight of him perchance a t that very mom entwhen, sunk in profound meditation, he is thinking. T h e visitors want thisexperience n o t in order t o be overwhelmed by thinking but simply so

    they can say they saw and heard som eon e everybody says is a thinker.Instead of this the sightseers find Heraclitus by a stove. T h a t is surely

    a com mon and insignificant place. Tru e eno ugh, bread is baked here. ButHeraclitus is no t even busy baking at the stove. H e stands there merelyto warm himself. In this altogether everyday place he betrays the entirepoverty of his life. T h e vision of a shivering thinker o ffers little of interest. At this disappointing spectacle even the curious lose their desire t ocome any closer. t h a t are they supposed to d o here? Such an everydayand unexciting occurrence omebody wh o is chilled warming himself a t astove -any on e can find any time at home. So why look up a thinker? T h evisitors are on the verge of going away again. Heraclitus reads the h s -trated curiosity in their faces. H e knows th at for the crowd th e failure o fan expected sensation to materialize is enou gh t o make tho se w ho have justam ved leave. H e therefore encourages them. H e invites them explicitly t ocome in with the words ~Lvar ip xu1

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    ~ ~ ~ ~ l i m ~imself says, S Oos d v O p z ~iaiywv, T h e (familiar) abode forhumans s the open region for the presenting of god (the unfamiliar one).If th e name ethics, in keepingwith the basic meaning of the word Ooc,should now, say tha t ethics ponders th e abode of the hum an being, then tha tthinking which th inks the n t h of being as the primordial element of thehuman heing, as one wh o eksists, is in itself originary ethics. How ever, this

    is not e thics in the first instance because it is ontology. Fo r on-t o l o p always thinks solely th e being ( ) in its being. But as lon g as thew t h of being is no t thoug ht all ontology remains without i t s foundation.Therefore th e thinking that in eing nd Erne tries to advance tho ught in apreliminary way into the u u t h o f being characterizes itself as fundamentalontology, I t sm ves t o reach back into th e essential ground from whichthought concern ing the t ru th of being emerges. By initiating ano the r in-quiry this thinking is already removed from the ontology of metaphysics(even tha t of Kant). On tologyn itself, however, whether transcendental o rprecritical, is subject to critique, n ot because it thinks th e be ing of beingsand in so doina reduces beina t o a concevt. bu t because it does no t think th eL .truth of being and so fails t o recognize tha t there is a thinking m ore rigor-ous than conceprual thinking. In the poverty of its first breakthrough, thethinking that &ies to advanc; th ou g ht in to the tru th of being b r i n g only asmall part of that wholly other dimension to language. T h is language w e nfalsifies itself, for i t does no t ye t succeed in reta ining the essential help ofphenomenological seeing while dispensing with th e inapprop riate concernwith sciencen and research. But in order to make the attem pt a t thinkingrecognizable and a t the same tim e understandable for existing philosophy,it could at first he expressed only within the horizon of [188] that existingphilosophy and the use of its curren t terms.

    In the meantime I have learned to see tha t these very terms were boundto lead imm ediately and inevitably into error. For the terms and th e con-ceptual language corresponding to them were not rethought by readersfrom the matter pamcularly to be thought; rather, the matter was con-ceived according t o the established terminology in its customary meaning.T h e thinking that inquires into th e tru th of heing and s o defines the hu-man being's essential abode from being and toward being is neither ethicsnor ontology. T hus the question ahou t the relation of each to th e oth er nolon ser has any basis in this sphere. Nonetheless, your question, tho ught ina more original way, retains a m eaning and an essential importance.

    Fo r it must he asked: If the thinking that ponders th e truth of beingclefines the essence of huer nit r as ek-sistence from the latter's belonging-ness to being, then does thinking remain only a theoretical representation

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    of being and of the hum an being; or can we obtain From such knowledgedirectires th at can be readily applied to o u r active lives?~h~ answer is that such thinking is neith er theoretical n o r practical. I tcomes t o pass [ m i p e t s i c I ~ ]efore this distinction. Such think ing is, insofaras it is, recollection of being and no thing else. Belonging to heing, becausethrown 1 . being into the preservation of its huth and claimed for suchpreservation, it thinks being. Such thinking has no result. I t has no effect.It satisfies in essence in th at it is. But it is hy saying its matter. Historically,only o ne saying [Sagel belongs to the m atter of thinking, the on e tha t isin each case appropria te to its matter. Its material relevance is essentiallyhigher than th e validity of th e sciences, because it is freer. For it lets bein ghe.Thin kin g builds upon the house of being, the house in which the jointureof being, in its destinal unfolding, enjoins the essence of the hum an being ineach case t o dwell in the h u t h of being. [ 89] T h is dwelling is the essenceof being-in-the-world. T h e reference in Beingand Time (p. 54 to being-in as dwelling is no t som e etymological play. T h e same reference in the936essay o n Holderlin's word , Full of merit, ye t poetically, man dwells

    upon this earth, is no t the ado rnm ent of a think ing that rescues itself fromscience by means of poehy. T h e talk abou t the house of heing is n o t thetransfer of the image house o n to heing. But one day we will, by thinkingthe essence o fb e in g in a way app ropriate to its matter, m ore readily be ablet o think what house and dwellinp are.L

    And yet thinking never creates the house of being. Thi nk in g conductshistorical eksistence, tha t is, the hrmanitm o f homo hamnantu, into the realmof the upsurgence of healing [des Heilen].

    W ith healing, evil appears all the mo re in the clearing of heing. T h eessence of evil does no t consist in th e m ere baseness of hum an action, bu trather in th e malice of rage. Both of these, however, healing and the raging,can essentially occur in being only insofar as being itself is in strife. In it isconcealed the essential provenance of nihilation. W hat nihilates comes t othe clearing as th e negative. T h is can he addressed in the no. T h e not inn o way arises from the no-saying of negation. Every no that does no t mis-take itselfaswillful assemon o ft h e positingpow er ofsubjectivity hut rat he rremains a letting-be of ek-sistence, answers to th e claim o f the nihilationthat has come to the clearing. Every no is simply the affirmation of th enot. Every affirmation consists in acknowledgment. Acknowledgm entlets that toward which it goes come toward it. It is believed that nihilationis nnwhere to he found in beings themselves. T h i s is correct as long as oneseeks nihilation s som e kind of being, as an existing quality in beings. But

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    LETI 'ER O W HUMANISM

    i n so seeking, one is not seeking nihilation. Neith er is being any existingq u l i t y that allows itself to be ascertained am ong beings. [ I ~ o ] nd yet be-ing is more in b e in g than any beings. Because nihilation occurs essentiallyin being itself we can never discern it as something in beings. Referenceto this i~n~ossihi l i tyever in any way proves tha t the origin of the no t isno-saying. T h is proof appears to carry weight only if one posits b e i n g aswhat is ohiective for subjectivity. From this alternative it follows tha t everynot, because it never appears as som ething objective, must inevitably bethe product of a subjective act. But whether no-saying first posits the notas som ething merely thought, o r wh ether nihilation first requires th e noas what is to be said in th e letting-be of beings - his can never be decided a tall by a subjective reflection of a think ing already posited as subjectivity. Insuch a reflection we have no t ye t reached the d imension where th e questioncan be appropriately formulated. I t remains t o ask, granting th at thinkingbelongs to ek-sistence, whether every yes and non are n o t themselvesalready eksistent in th e tru th of being. If they are, the n the yes and th eu o I are already inmnsically in thrall t o being. s enthralled, they cannever first posit th e very thing t o which they themselves belong.

    Nih ilationunfolds essentially in beingitself, and no t at all in the existenceof the human being - so far as this existence is thou gh t as the subjectivityof the ego cog to. Existence [ asein]in n o way nihilates as a human subjectwho carries ou t nihilation in the sense of denial; rather, Da-sein nihilatesinasmuch as it belong to the essence of being as that essence in whichthe human being ek-sists. Being nihilates - as being. There fore the notappears in the absolute Idealism of Hegel and Schelling as the negativ-ity of negation in the essence o f being. Rut there being is tho ug ht in thesense of absolute actuality as the unconditioned will that wills itself anddoes so as the will of knowledge and of love. n this willing being as willto power is still concealed. Rut just why the negativity of absolute sub-iectiviry is dialectical, and why nihilation comes t o the fore through thisdialectic bu t a t the same time is veiled in i t s essence, can not he discussedhere.

    (1911T h e nihilating in being is the essence of what I call the nothing.Hence, because it thinks being, think ing thinks the nothing .T o healing being first grants ascent in to grace; to raging its compulsionto 1na1ignanc-y.

    ; int edition. ry+v: lnsnhr as be in lets beings be.Fint e

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    o n l y so far as the human being, ek-sisting into the truth of being, be-lonF t heine can there come from being itself the assignment of thosedirectives tha; must becom e law and rule for human b e in g . In Greek, t o

    s v6 ~z r v . Sh lo< is no t only law but mo re originally the a s s i p m e n tcontained in the dispensation o f being. O nly this assignment is capable ofenjoining humans in to heing. On ly such enioining is capable ofs up po m ngand oh li p ti ng . Otherwise all law remains merely som eth ing fabricated byhuman reason. M or e essential than instituting rules is tha t hum an beingsfind the way to their abode in the truth of being. T h is abode first yields th eexperience ofso m eth ing we can hold on to. T h e truth of heingoffers a holdfor all conduct. Ho ld in ou r language means protective heed. Being is theprotective heed tha t holds the human being in his ek-sistent essence t o thetruth of such protective heed n such a way tha t i t houses ek-sistence inlanguage. T h u s language is a t once the house of being and t he home of thehuman essence.