Abstract

For Heidegger man is the strangest of beings when he discovers himself as man qua the mystery of Being. In the Prologue and Introduction the revolutionary nature of Heidegger's thinking is foregrounded. Chapter I addresses the ambiguity about Heidegger as a man and as a philosopher in view of his political activities. Chapter II examines Heidegger's critique of the history of thinking and inquires into his claim that traditional philosophy has forgotten the fundamental "question of Being." All previous philosophical thinking, Heidegger claims, finds its completion when man asks about the existent, that is, when he discovers that he ek-sists. This discovery constitutes "another beginning" in the history of thinking. From "another beginning" emerges that which Heidegger terms originary or meditative thinking. Chapter III investigates Heidegger's early thinking in Being and Time. According to Heidegger when man first discovers ek-sistence he begins to recover and appropriate the ontological structures of Existenz. Thus man uncovers the true mystery of time and of care which are revealed to be the unitary ground of Being itself . ;Chapter IV and V inquire into Heidegger's later thinking. Chapter IV investigates the place of man beyond the mystery of ontological structures which in effect are an examination of man qua man. Heidegger claims that thinking makes a turn to mysteriously discover itself in the time of beingness beyond all ontological structures and as the ground of all ontologies, that is, as the possibility of all thinking. Therein man is bestowed to himself as the mystery of Existenz in and through the very nature of time or the ground of world as world, whereupon all spatiality and "experiencing" are the unconcealment of Being as the appropriation of self concealing. Chapter V and the Epilogue inquire into the ways Heidegger thinks Being as self concealing or as the holy which is nameless. The holy is the essential nature of man as it is brought to light or named by the genuine thinker and the true poet. Ultimately, Heidegger maintains that man takes place in and comprehends the mystery of Being poetically