Authors Preface to the Seventh German Edition by Martin Heidegger Lyrics
This treatise first appearing in the spring of 1927 in the Jahrbuch für Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Forscung edited by Edmund Husserl, and was published simultaneously in a special printing.
The present reprint, which appears as the seventh edition, is unchanged in the text, but has been newly revised with regard to quotations and punctuation. The page-numbers of this reprint agree with those of the earlier editions except for minor deviations.
While the previous editions have borne the designation ‘First Half’, this has now been deleted. After a quarter of a century, the second half could no longer be added unless the first were to be presented anew. Yet the road it has taken remains even today a necessary one, if our Dasein is to be stirred by the question of Being.
For the elucidation of this question the reader may refer to my Einführung in die Metaphysik, which is appearing simultaneously with this reprinting under the same publishers. This work presents the text of a course of lectures delivered in the summer semester of 1935.
...δῆλον γὰρ ὡς ὑμεῖς μὲν ταῦτα (τί ποτε βούλεσθε σημαίνειν ὁπόταν ὂν φθέγγησθε) πάλαι γιγνώσκετε, ἡμεῖς δὲ πρὸ τοῦ μὲν ᾠόμεθα, νῦν δ' ἠπορήκαμεν...
‘For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression “being”. We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.’
Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word ‘being’? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew the question of the meaning of Being. But are we nowadays even perplexed at our inability to understand the expression ‘Being’? Not at all. So first of all we must reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question. Our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the meaning of Being and to do so concretely. Our provisional aim is the Interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being.
But the reasons for making this our aim, the investigations which such a purpose requires, and the path to its achievement, call for some introductory remarks.
The present reprint, which appears as the seventh edition, is unchanged in the text, but has been newly revised with regard to quotations and punctuation. The page-numbers of this reprint agree with those of the earlier editions except for minor deviations.
While the previous editions have borne the designation ‘First Half’, this has now been deleted. After a quarter of a century, the second half could no longer be added unless the first were to be presented anew. Yet the road it has taken remains even today a necessary one, if our Dasein is to be stirred by the question of Being.
For the elucidation of this question the reader may refer to my Einführung in die Metaphysik, which is appearing simultaneously with this reprinting under the same publishers. This work presents the text of a course of lectures delivered in the summer semester of 1935.
...δῆλον γὰρ ὡς ὑμεῖς μὲν ταῦτα (τί ποτε βούλεσθε σημαίνειν ὁπόταν ὂν φθέγγησθε) πάλαι γιγνώσκετε, ἡμεῖς δὲ πρὸ τοῦ μὲν ᾠόμεθα, νῦν δ' ἠπορήκαμεν...
‘For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression “being”. We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.’
Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word ‘being’? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew the question of the meaning of Being. But are we nowadays even perplexed at our inability to understand the expression ‘Being’? Not at all. So first of all we must reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question. Our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the meaning of Being and to do so concretely. Our provisional aim is the Interpretation of time as the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being.
But the reasons for making this our aim, the investigations which such a purpose requires, and the path to its achievement, call for some introductory remarks.