The Review of Metaphysics

Abstract:

In 2018 On My Own Publications was published as volume 82 of Heidegger's collected works. Its content includes roughly 400 pages in which Heidegger himself reflects on Being and Time. A central theme in these pages, and the one to which this article is devoted, is Heidegger's criticism of the way that the question of Being (Seinsfrage) is conceived there as the question of the understanding of Being (Seinsverständnisfrage). More specifically, the author aims to demonstrate the importance of these criticisms –which include matters of both style and content –for understanding Being and Time itself and the general development of Heidegger's thought. Though many critics already seized on what they took to be the inadequacy of starting with the understanding of Being, we can now see in detail how Heidegger himself conceived its inadequacy and how he specifically sought to address it in his later thought.