For the time Being: Heidegger’s Final Words in Vorläufiges I-IV

Abstract

This article discusses the final volume of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe. It does so by contextualizing its main themes, that is, by relating it to other writings of Heidegger of roughly the same period. Three such themes can be discovered in Heidegger’s “final” writing: a discussion of the nature of phenomenology, the abandonment of the ontological difference and the relation between the thought of being and the discipline of theology. The essay concludes with a comparison of Heidegger’s thinking of Ereignis to how theology configured the relation between God and the human being, so arguing that Heidegger seemed more indebted to the tradition of theology that he at times could acknowledge.