As all of you know perfectly well, the fundamental problem is to distinguish on the one hand, being as such, being qua being, and, on the other hand, existence, as a category which precisely is not reducible to that of being. It is the heart of the matter. This difference between being and existence is often the result of the consideration of a special type of being. It is the case for Heidegger, with the distinction between Sein and Dasein. If we take into account the etymological framework, we can see that “existence,” which depends on Dasein, is a topological concept. It means to be here, to be in the world. And in fact, I also shall propose to determine the very general concept of “existence” by the necessity of thinking the place, or the world, of everything which is. And this place is not deducible from being as such.

But clearly for Heidegger, Da-sein, and finally, existence, is a name for human being, for historical destiny of thinking, for crucial and creative experience of the becoming of being itself. I shall propose a concept of being-here and of existence without any reference to something like consciousness, experience, or human being. I shall construct before you a pure relational concept of the slight distance between a multiplicity and the same multiplicity here, in its place, in a world.

¶ 2:25 AM