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FROM THE LETTERS TO MEDARD BOSS, 1947-1971


to me that the psychiatrist needs a psychiatrist. Perhaps you can write a few short notes for me when you send it back. The thesis is a copy of a doctoral dissertation.

In retrospect, both seminars seem to have had good results—in part because of the participants* familiarity with the subject matter; in part because a few of them may be feeling that philosophy cannot answer all their questions. The theme "Hermeneutics of Exploration" (in our version) is promising insofar as it moves in the sphere between [too little and too much philosophy] and does not run the risk of becoming too philosophical.

...



August 14, 1967, from Freiburg im Breisgau


...

"Immanence" is a fixed term for the "immanence of consciousness."

It is difficult to find an immediately understandable phrase for the "worldlessness of things merely present-at-hand" [Weltlosigkeit bloss vorhandener Dinge]. This state of affairs is foreign to science. It does not see "world" and "world-liness" [Welthafte] at all.* It takes things as objects of scientific thematization and does not know anything else. It overlooks the referential assignment things truly have on their own toward the region in which human Da-sein immediately exists on an everyday basis. To someone for whom the "true world" remains reduced to scientific objects, a thing such as "worldlessness" [Weltlosigkeit] can be shown as little as color [can be shown] to the color-blind.

...



September 24, 1967, from Messkirch


...

As for the "anticipated flashes of insight," little can be communicated in a few sentences, least of all in pure propositions, because that is a matter of change in experiencing and seeing.

The openness of Da-sein "is" the enduring [Ausstehen] of the clearing. Clearing and Da-sein belong together beforehand, and the



* See Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 51-52; Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 176 f.—TRANSLATORS


Zollikon Seminars by Martin Heidegger