EREIGNIS

With the appearance of human being, meaning dawned in the universe, and nothing has been the same since. For the first time in the 13.7 billion years of the cosmos, things were no longer just “out there” but instead became meaningfully present (anwesend). As far as we know, only human beings can question things, recognize them for what they are in themselves, name them, talk about them in soliloquy or dialogue, and even talk about that talking. Once Man is possessed by the Promethean fire of intellect and language, human history begins as a complex unfolding of meaningful lives.

Heidegger’s philosophical focus never strayed from die Sache Selbst, the astonishing fact that with human existence sense irrupts into an otherwise meaningless universe. Throughout his career he remained fixed on the twofold question of (1) the meaningful presence (Anwesen) of things, and (2) above all, what lets such meaningful presence happen (das Anwesenlassen). The latter is what Heidegger called his basic question or Grundfrage. If philosophy begins with astonishment, then the άρχή — the origin and ordering — of all Heidegger’s thought Was the wonder of all wonders: that things make sense.