enowning
Saturday, June 30, 2012
 
What is the question?
Being and Time — there is a book of this title. But this book-title as such is just as irrelevant as many others. What is crucial is likewise not the book itself but that the reader becomes aware of the fundamental occurrence of Western metaphysics, the metaphysics of our whole existence, an occurrence over which individual books have no power but before which everything else must submit. Being and time is not at all a novelty nor is it a so-called philosophical standpoint. Even less is it a particular philosophy whose revolutionary mood might appeal to contemporary youth. It is not a novelty, for already the ancients inquired into the essence of time, likewise Kant and Hegel and every philosopher. Indeed, just those great thinkers, Plato and Aristotle. who brought the leading question of philosophy to its first authentic awakening by reference to οὐσία, were also — especially Aristotle — the first to inquire into the essence of time. And yet to inquire into time, and also into being, does not mean understanding the problem of ‘being and time’. Both being and time remained hidden in their innermost relation and so remained also in subsequent philosophy. The ‘and’ is the actual crux of the problem. The leading question — what are beings? — must itself be transformed into the fundamental question, i.e. into the question which inquires into the ‘and’ of being and time and thus into the ground of both. This fundamental question is: what is the essence of time, such that it grounds being, and such that the question of being as the leading question of metaphysics can and must be unfolded within this horizon?
P. 81-2
 
Comments:
It is not clear to me from the hyperlink where this quote originated. Is it from the Malick translation?
 
It's from "The Essence of Human Freedom". I've added that as the title of the link. It should show up when the mouse hovers over the link.

I've noticed that some browsers won't jump to the position in the file the hyperlink points to. Probably because some of the files are getting too big. If I re-try the link, then the browser does move to the position linked to. Probably because the page is now cached locally and loads faster.

Another breakage is that a bunch of the book cover images are no longer showing up. I'll need to figure out what's up there too.
 
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