O que é o homem, isto é, aquilo que na linguagem tradicional da metafísica é denominado a “essência” do homem, reside em sua ek-sistência. Mas o que assim se pensa como ek-sistência não se identifica com o conceito tradicional de existentia, isto é, realidade efetiva, em distinção ante a essentia como a possibilidade. Em Ser e tempo sublinha-se a seguinte frase: “A ‘essência’ do ser-aí reside em sua (338) existência”. Aqui, porém, não está em questão a contraposição entre existentia e essentia, porque estas duas definições metafísicas do ser ainda não foram colocadas em questão, e muito menos a relação entre elas. E muito menos contém a frase uma afirmação geral sobre o ser-aí, na medida em que este termo, surgido no século XVIII para representar a palavra “objeto”, deve expressar o conceito metafísico da realidade efetiva daquilo que é efetivamente real. Ao contrário, a frase diz o seguinte: o homem se essencia de tal modo que ele é seu “aí”, isto é, ele é a clareira do ser. Esse “ser” do aí, e só ele, tem os traços fundamentais da ek-sistência, ou seja, do estar postado ek-stático no cerne da verdade do ser. A essência ek-stática do homem reside na ek-sistência, que permanece distinta da existentia pensada pela metafísica. A filosofia medieval concebe essa existentia como actualitas. Kant representa a existentia como a realidade efetiva, no sentido da objetividade da experiência. Hegel determina a existentia como a ideia da subjetividade absoluta, ciente de si mesma. Nietzsche concebe a existentia como o eterno retomo do mesmo. É preciso, porém, que fique aqui em aberto enquanto questão saber se as interpretações que concebem a existentia como realidade efetiva, distintas apenas segundo a aparência mais imediata, já pensaram suficientemente, por meio desse conceito de existentia, o ser da pedra ou até mesmo a vida enquanto o ser dos vegetais e dos animais. Em todo caso, os seres vivos são como são, sem precisar se postar a partir de seu ser como tal na verdade do ser e sem precisar conservar o elemento essenciante de seu ser nesse postar-se. Dentre todos os entes que são, o ser-vivo é provavelmente o mais difícil de ser pensado por nós, porque ele é por um lado o que mais se parece conosco, e, por outro lado, está abissalmente separado de nossa essência ek-sistente. Em contrapartida, poderia parecer que a essência do divino nos seria mais próxima do que esse aspecto estranho de seres-vivos, mais próxima no sentido de uma distância essencial que, enquanto distância, é de certo modo mais familiar à nossa essência ek-sistente do que esse parentesco físico, abissal com o animal, quase impensável. Essas reflexões projetam uma estranha luz (339) sobre a caracterização do homem como animal racional; em geral, essa caracterização é habitual e, por isto, sempre muito apressada. E visto que os vegetais e os animais sempre se encontram ligados ao seu meio ambiente e jamais se encontram postados livremente na clareira do ser, a única que constitui “mundo”, eles não têm linguagem. Mas não é porque a linguagem lhes permanece negada que eles dependem de seu meio ambiente, desprovidos de mundo. Nessa palavra “meio ambiente”, porém, congrega-se tudo o que há de enigmático no ser-vivo. Em sua essência, a linguagem não é a manifestação de um organismo, tampouco a expressão de um ser vivo. Por isto, jamais pode ser pensada de modo essencialmente correto a partir do caráter de sinal, e quem sabe nem sequer a partir de seu caráter de significação. A linguagem é o advento do ser, que ilumina e oculta. (p. 338-339)
Ek-sistence can be said only of the essence of the human being, that is, only of the human way “to be.” For as far as our experience shows, only the human being is admitted to the destiny of ek-sistence. Therefore ek-sistence can also never be thought of as a specific land of living creature among others – granted that the human being is destined to think the essence of his being and not merely to give accounts of the nature and history of his constitution and activities. Thus even what we attribute to the human being as animalitas on the basis of the comparison with “beasts” is itself grounded in the essence of ek-sistence. The human body is something essentially other than an animal organism. Nor is the error of biolo-gism overcome by adjoining a soul to the human body, a mind to the soul, and the existentiell to the mind, and then louder than before singing the praises of the mind – only to let everything relapse into “life-experience,” with a warning that thinking by its inflexible concepts disrupts the flow of life and that thought of being distorts existence. The fact that physiology and physiological chemistry can scientifically investigate the human being as an organism is no proof that in this “organic” thing, that is, in the body scientifically explained, the essence of the human being consists. That has as little validity as the notion that the essence of nature has been discovered in atomic energy. It could even be that nature, in the face it turns toward the human being’s technical mastery, is simply concealing its essence. Just as little as the essence of the human being consists in being an animal organism can this insufficient definition of the essence of the human being be overcome or offset by outfitting the human being with an immortal soul, the power of reason, or the character of a person. In each instance its essence is passed over, and passed over on the basis of the same metaphysical projection.
What the human being is – or, as it is called in the traditional language of metaphysics, the “essence” of the human being – lies in his ek-sistence. (247) But ek-sistence thought in this way is not identical with the traditional concept of existentia, which means actuality in contrast to the meaning of essentia as possibility. In Being and Time (p. 42) this sentence is italicized: “The ‘essence’ of Dasein lies in its existence.” However, here the opposition between existentia and essentia is not what is at issue, because neither of these metaphysical determinations of being, let alone their relationship, is yet in question. Still less does the sentence contain a universal statement about Dasein, in the sense in which this word came into fashion in the eighteenth century, as a name for “object,” intending to express the metaphysical concept of the actuality of the actual. On the contrary, the sentence says: the human being occurs essentially in such a way that he is the “there” [das “Da”j, that is, the clearing of being. The “being” of the Da, and only it, has the fundamental character of ek-sistence, that is, of an ecstatic inherence in the truth of being. The ecstatic essence of the human being consists in ek-sistence, which is different from the metaphysically conceived existentia. Medieval philosophy conceives the latter as actuali-tas. Kant represents existentia as actuality in the sense of the objectivity of experience. Hegel defines existentia as the self-knowing Idea of absolute subjectivity. Nietzsche grasps existentia as the eternal recurrence of the same. Here it remains an open question whether through existentia – in these explanations of it as actuality that at first seem quite different – the being of a stone or even life as the being of plants and animals is adequately thought. In any case living creatures are as they are without standing outside their being as such and within the truth of being, preserving in such standing the essential nature of their being. Of all the beings that are, presumably the most difficult to think about are living creatures, because on the one hand they are in a certain way most closely akin to us, and on the other they are at the same time separated from our ek-sistent essence by an abyss. However, it might also seem as though the essence of divinity is closer to us than what is so alien in other living creatures, closer, namely, in an essential distance that, however distant, is nonetheless more familiar to our ek-sistent essence than is our scarcely conceivable, abysmal bodily kinship with the beast. Such reflections cast a strange light upon the current and therefore always still premature designation of the human being as animal rationale. Because plants and animals are lodged in their respective environments but are never placed freely into the clearing of being which alone is “world,” they lack language. But in being denied language they are not thereby suspended worldlessly in their environment. Still, in this word “environment” converges all that is puzzling about living creatures. In its essence, language is not the utterance of an organism; nor is it the expression of a living thing. Nor can it ever be thought in an essentially correct way in terms of its symbolic character, perhaps not even in terms of the character of signification. Language is the clearing-concealing advent of being itself. (p. 246-248)
Das, was der Mensch ist, das heißt in der überlief erten Sprache der Metaphysik das »Wesen« des Menschen, beruht in seiner Ek-sistenz. Aber die so gedachte Ek-sistenz ist nicht identisch mit dem überlieferten Begriff der existentia, was Wirklichkeit bedeutet im Unterschied zu essentia als der Möglichkeit. In »Sein und Zeit« (S. 42) steht gesperrt der Satz: »Das »Wesen« des Daseins hegt in seiner Existenz.« Hier handelt es sich aber nicht um eine Entgegensetzung von existentia und essentia, weil diese beiden metaphysischen Bestimmungen des Seins überhaupt noch nicht, geschweige denn ihr Verhältnis, in Frage* stehen. Der Satz enthält noch weniger eine allgemeine Aussage über das Dasein, insofern diese im 18. Jahrhundert für das Wort »Gegenstand« auf gekommene Benennung den metaphysischen Begriff der Wirklichkeit des Wirklichen ausdrücken soll. Vielmehr sagt der Satz dieses: der Mensch west so, daß er das »Da«, das heißt die Lichtung des Seins, ist. Dieses »Sein« des Da, und nur dieses, hat den Grundzug der Ek-sistenz, das heißt des ekstatischen Innestehens in der Wahrheit des Seins. Das ekstatische Wesen des Menschen beruht in der Ek-sistenz, die von der metaphysisch gedachten existentia verschieden bleibt.”Diese begreift die mittelalterliche Philosophie als actualitas. Kant stellt die existentia als die Wirklichkeit vor im Sinne der Objektivität der Erfahrung. Hegel bestimmt die existentia als die sich selbst wissende Idee der absoluten Subjektivität. Nietzsche erfaßt die existentia als die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen. Ob freilich durch die existentia in ihren nur dem nächsten Anschein nach verschiedenen Auslegungen als Wirklichkeit schon das Sein des Steines oder gar das Leben als das Sein der Gewächse und des Getiers zureichend gedacht ist, bleibe hier als Frage offen. In jedem Falle sind die Lebewesen, wie sie sind, ohne daß sie aus (326) ihrem Sein als solchem her in der Wahrheit des Seins stehen und in solchem Stehen das Wesende ihres Seins verwahren. Vermutlich ist für uns von allem Seienden, das ist, das Lebe-Wesen am schwersten zu denken, weil es uns einerseits in gewisser Weise am nächsten verwandt und andererseits doch zugleich durch einen Abgrund von unserem ek-sistenten Wesen geschieden ist. Dagegen möchte es scheinen, als sei das Wesen des Göttlichen uns näher als das Befremdende der Lebe-Wesen, näher nämlich in einer Wesensfeme, die als Feme unserem eksistenten Wesen gleichwohl vertrauter ist als die kaum auszudenkende abgründige leibliche Verwandtschaft mit dem Tier. Solche Überlegungen werfen auf die geläufige und daher immer noch voreilige Kennzeichnung des Menschen als animal rationale ein seltsames Licht. Weil Gewächs und Getier zwar je in ihre Umgebung verspannt, aber niemals in die Lichtung des Seins, und nur sie ist »Welt«, frei gestellt sind, deshalb fehlt ihnen die Sprache. (p. 325-326)