Dasein - Monoskop

HEIDEGGER'S ONTOLOGY AND LANGUAGE AS THE UNIVERSAL MEDIUM 207 SI
(D-4 ) Being is illumination.
B-4 can almost directly be found in Heidegger's writings: "But illumination
itself is Being". 284 In the light of what we heard earlier of
Being and illumination, this equation does not come as a surprise.
In "The Origin of the Work of Art", we were told that beings are
accessible to us, that they are beings for us only in so far as they are
disclosed by standing out in illumination. In this section we summarized
Heidegger's idea on the relation between Being and beings
as one in which Being makes our understanding of beings possible.
Putting these two theses together, we arrive at thesis B-4-
The late Heidegger also deals repeatedly with the happening of
Being. This happening is the history of our partial and insufficient
understanding of Being. Heidegger claims that the understanding of
Being which in Being and Time he referred to as "presence-at-hand"
( Vorhandenheit), and which in his later writings he calls "presence"
(Anwesenheii), has been the prédominent understanding of Being
from Plato up until the present day. Within this history, Heidegger
distinguishes further several phases, for instance, the Platonic interpretation
of Being as idea, or the modern interpretation of Being
as that which is controlled by us: Being as "framing" (Ge-sfe//). 285
The details of this history are not our concern here. Yet what does
deserve our attention is Heidegger's often repeated contention according
to which our understanding of Being is a " Geschick". The
word "Geschick" in German means "fate" or "destiny", yet taken
literally, as " Geschick", it means 'that which has been sent'. When
Heidegger speaks of our understanding of Being as a "Geschick",
both meanings are alluded to. On the one hand, our understanding
of Being is our fate because we cannot change or overcome it. On
the other hand, our understanding of Being is sent to us by Being
itself. However, by calling our understanding of Being a message ( by
Being), Heidegger does not mean to say that Being reveals itself to
us totally. What he wishes to say is that Being in its message still
withholds its essence:
When using the word "Geschick" with respect to Being, we
mean to say that Being speaks to us, or illuminates itself, and
that through this illumination Being concedes us the time-space-