Heidegger, fenomenologia, hermenêutica, existênciaDwelling designates the fundamental structure of being-there as it sojourns in nearness to entities. As Hölderlin says in one of his poems, man dwells between heaven and earth. This “between” is a dimension [42] that admits of measure. Since man dwells in this dimension, it is his task to do the measuring. Only insofar as man measures out his dwelling, can he be in harmony with his mission of providing a place for being’s unconcealment. Yet, being also needs an “abode” in which to reside, a residence within which to “gift” its truth and simultaneously preserve its mystery. Accordingly, that unique residence is language which, as he so eloquently states in the Letter on Humanism, is the “house of being.” Thus, the ultimate measure-taking of human beings involves poetizing-thinking. In this distinctive way of caring for and “safeguarding” language, human beings take over conservatorship of enowning and thereby become custodians and “shepherds” of the truth of being.
Language, poetry, and thinking belong together. Language is the clearing-concealing advent of being, and as such the “home” in which its truth resides. In this home, human beings also dwell by safeguarding the word and cultivating it as the “place” for being to manifest itself. Human beings must first let themselves be claimed by being before they can speak and take the risk that they will seldom have much to say. In this way, philosophy relinquishes its pretense of “absolute knowledge” and gives way to the “poverty of thinking.” As Heidegger repeatedly emphasizes, human beings do not possess language as a tool or instrument. Instead, language speaks through them when they listen to the “ringing stillness” of language, and thereby answer the claim of being. In this respect, speaking is first and foremost a way of hearing and responding, in which the unsaid and unspoken depths of language can reverberate in what is said. Language thereby speaks in the silent attunement of this simple “saying.” Speaking as the hearing of language lets saying be said to it, in order that what has previously remained unsaid can echo across the corridors of history.
Language achieves its completion in poetry. In poetry, it listens to the intonation of the word and thereby invites things to gather to themselves sky and earth, mortals and divinities, and thus lets the world be. In thinking, being-there responds to this appeal by trying to commemorate the truth of being and by “giving thanks” for the “gift” of its unconcealment. In this way, human beings come full circle in their dwelling by allowing their concession of poverty to mirror the inestimable wealth of being’s diverse possibilities of manifestation. In the words of Hölderlin, human beings may learn to dwell on this earth, “full of merit and yet poetically.”
