Iain Thomson's new
paper is on ecophenomenology. I don't have a deep understanding of the various threads he teases out of the matter but I found footnote 36 of particular interest:
[O]nce Heidegger abandoned his earlier quest for a ‘fundamental ontology’ (that is, a transhistorically-binding understanding of ‘the meaning of being in general’), he could no longer appeal to such a notion in order to explain what makes possible Western history’s succession of epoch-grounding understandings of ‘the being of entities’ (a succession that, in the early work, is thought to be a retrogressive falling-away from an originally complete ‘fundamental ontology’). I believe Sheehan is misled by passages in which Heidegger seems to equate ‘being as such’ with ‘enowning’ (Ereignis), for this is not Heidegger’s considered view, and passages can be found alongside these that more carefully distinguish these two key terms of his later thought (put simply, Ereignis is how ‘being as such’ takes place),
Sheehan's writings about Heidegger's works over the last couple of decade have been particularly clarifying, correcting misconceptions from earlier translations and straightening obtuse corners. But has he simplified too far? Heidegger seems to use terms like
kehre and
ereignis in ways that aren't always compatible. This is an area of Anglophone Heideggeriana that needs additional work.