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Four Seminars [116–118]

But from what standpoint can Heidegger make this characterization? From a questioning and thorough thinking of Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, in Plato and Aristotle’s texts, for those who know that being is not an abstract concept, there is the first determination of the being of beings, a fundamental determination for the entirety of philosophical thinking: being, that is, presencing. Neither Plato nor Aristotle put into question this determination, which for them is simply manifest.

The entire history of metaphysics is organized from here as the succession of the various fundamental figures of the being of beings, on the basis of the original determination where “being” is apprehended as παρουσία.

Thus the entire history of metaphysics proves itself to be the history of the being of beings.

Accordingly, one is at first glance in an apparently ambiguous relationship with the history of metaphysics:

—On the one hand, metaphysics never asks about anything other than being;

—On the other hand, it never asks about the meaning of being.

From this ambiguity arises the temptation to take philosophy as posing, at each of its epochs, the fundamental question concerning the meaning of being. In the perspective of the work to come, Heidegger invites the participants of the seminar to reflect on the question: Can one say that the question concerning the meaning of being was ever posed in the entire history of philosophy? We cannot be satisfied in simply answering that it has never occurred.

The session ends with a return to the Husserlian idea of the “sensibly given”—this time in the perspective of what these givens become in Being and Time.

Being and Time no longer speaks of consciousness. Consciousness is plain and simply set aside—for Husserl this was a pure scandal! Instead of “consciousness” we find Dasein. But what does Dasein mean? And which is grounded in the other?

We need to inquire here into the meaning of consciousness [Bewußtsein]. In consciousness, there is knowing [Wissen], which is related to videre, in the sense that knowing is having-seen. Consciousness moves in the domain of sight, where it is illuminated by the lumen naturale. What does the light “do”? It brings clarity. And what does clarity make possible? First and foremost, that I can encounter things. The French verb regarder (to look at) is here very telling. Regarder indeed means garder, to preserve, to safe-guard [ge-wahren; re-garder], in the sense of letting what I am looking at come near me.

What is the basis of this having-seen for any consciousness? The fundamental possibility for the human being to traverse an open expanse in order to reach the things.


Martin Heidegger (GA 15) Seminar in Zähringen 1973