called by the well-known motto "To the things themselves." It was precisely in this sense that Husserl's investigations stood out from the manner of procedure of Neo-kantianism as something new and tremendously stimulating, as Dilthey was the first ( 1905) to see. And it is in this sense that one can say of Heidegger that he preserves true phenomenology. Actually, the question of Being would not have been possible without a fundamentally phenomenological attitude.
Husserl's turn toward the problems of Neo-kantianism—first evident in the important essay "Philosophy as Exact Science" (Logos I, 1910-11) which is much too neglected today—and the fact that Husserl lacked any vital relation to history brought about the break with Dilthey. In this connection, we mentioned among other things the fact that Husserl understood Being and Time as the regional ontology of the historical within the framework of his conception of regional ontologies.
The fourth session was dominated by the discussion of a question related to the important passage ("Being by ... "up to "that is, gives Being") which we already cited. The question aimed at the relation of Being and time to Appropriation and asked whether there was a gradation in the sense of an ever greater originality within the concepts named there—presencing, letting-presence, unconcealing, giving and appropriating. It asked whether the movement in the passage in question leading from presencing to letting-presence etc. to appropriating was a deduction to a more original ground.
If it is not a case of something more original, the question arises of what the difference and relation is between the concepts named. They do not present a gradation, but rather stages on a way back which is opened and leads preliminarily into Appropriation.
The discussion following essentially concerned the meaning of determination inherent in the manner in which presencing determines what is present in metaphysics. Through this articulation, the character of the way back from presencing to appropriating was to be clarified, a character which can only too easily be misunderstood as the preparation of a more original ground.
The presencing of what is present—that is, letting-presence: what