[Polt] sees Heidegger in the 1930s shifting from the understanding of the clearing (Seinsverständnis) to the happening of the clearing (Seinsgeschehnis). Polt identifies this happening as "das Ereignis," an event that lies entirely in the future and hence has never yet been realized. And (1) since Ereignis is the very happening of the clearing and (2) since the clearing is what defines human being as Dasein, it follows that no human being has ever yet been Dasein. What's more, until the ancient Greeks began asking the question of being, no one really existed as human; and nowadays "only those human beings who live in the legacy of that [Greek] inception 'exist'" in Heidegger's sense of the term.

¶ 9:37 PM