Seinsfrage

Heidegger's "question of Being" — the cardinal question of Sein und Zeit and the rubric under which Heidegger's lifelong project travels. The 1964 essay "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" marginal (27) reframes the Seinsfrage as "der verkürzte Titel für die Frage nach der Herkunft der ontologischen Differenz" (the abbreviated title for the question of the origin of the ontological difference) — a late, decisive re-positioning that authorizes the supported claim claims#brentano-as-erste-anstoss-of-seinsfrage (live) and the candidate claims#heidegger-1964-seinsfrage-as-origin-of-ontological-difference (candidate).

Key Points

  • The SuZ-form (1927): the Seinsfrage opens Sein und Zeit — what is the sense (Sinn) of Being? The question is to be reawakened from oblivion; Dasein is the entity through whose analytic the question becomes accessible.
  • The 1964 reframing (heidegger-1964-end-of-philosophy, marginal 27, p. 87): the Seinsfrage is the "abbreviated title" for the question of the origin of the ontological difference. This is the most explicit late statement that the question's true target is the Herkunft (origin/provenance) of the difference between Being and beings.
  • The 1962 Zeit und Sein form: the Seinsfrage is re-asked from Ereignis rather than from Dasein-Zeitlichkeit-Sorge (the SuZ-vocabulary). The lecture answers what the never-published SuZ Third Section "Zeit und Sein" could not: the Sinn von Sein is the Es gibt, which is the Ereignis.
  • The Brentano origin: per claims#brentano-as-erste-anstoss-of-seinsfrage (live, high confidence), Brentano's 1862 dissertation "Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles" is the erste Anstoss (first impulse) of Heidegger's Seinsfrage — the question of the manifold sense of Being that the Sinn von Sein will pursue.

What the Concept Does

The Seinsfrage is Heidegger's master concept in the sense that everything else — Dasein, Ereignis, Lichtung, ontological difference, Geviert — orbits it as either a vehicle for re-asking it or a station on its developmental path. The 1964 marginal makes the orbit explicit by retroactively specifying what the question always was toward: the origin of the ontological difference.

Connections

Open Questions

  • The exact philological status of the marginal (27) at p. 87 — when added, in which manuscript layer? (Marginals across the Zur Sache des Denkens essays were added at multiple times; dating affects the developmental argument.)
  • Whether Heidegger's "verkürzter Titel" claim is a retrospective specification of what he always meant, or a late substantive shift in the question's content. The candidate claim claims#heidegger-1964-seinsfrage-as-origin-of-ontological-difference is structured around this open question.

Sources

  • heidegger-1964-end-of-philosophy — marginal (27) at p. 87: the Seinsfrage as "verkürzter Titel für die Frage nach der Herkunft der ontologischen Differenz."
  • heidegger-1962-zeit-und-sein — Protokoll p. 46: Ereignis and the release (Erlassen) of the ontological difference; the late re-positioning of the Seinsfrage from Ereignis.
  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — context for the Leitfrage / Grundfrage distinction within which the Seinsfrage operates.