The Question of Being: Foremost Hermeneutic Pre-condition for Interpreting Heidegger

Abstract

Seventy-five years after the publication of SuZ, this work still not interpreted in the light of the question of being — few exceptions notwithstanding. To commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of SuZ, it is fitting to take up this question, and to attend to its structure and hermeneutic ramifications. Returning to this question we come upon and experience a phenomenon which Heidegger calls «retro- or forward relatedness of being» and which constitutes the foremost hermeneutic pre-condition for gaining access to his entire thought. It is the purpose of this paper to indicate that this relatedness sustains Heidegger’s trascendental-horizonal as well as his being-historical thinking.

Keywords

• question of being
• existence
• hermeneutic
• Being and Time.