Embora Heidegger tenha desenvolvido o conceito de Ereignis entre 1936 e 1938, as sementes desta ideia foram plantadas em Ser e Tempo e começaram a germinar no seu ensaio de 1930, “Sobre a Essência da Verdade”. Aqui é-nos dito que a liberdade constitui a essência da verdade ou da revelação. A liberdade não é um poder humano arbitrário.
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Na sua obra posterior, Heidegger continuou a desenvolver a ideia de que a existência humana não é apenas para si própria, mas tem uma função cósmica. O homem é “atirado” para a verdade do Ser; é chamado a guardar esta verdade ou abertura. Heidegger chama mesmo ao homem “o pastor do Ser”. (GA9:WGM, 161-162/210) Quando ele fala do fato de que o Ser “precisa” do homem (GA6T2:NII, 483), o seu ponto de vista é duplo. Primeiro, sem a abertura humana, os entes não poderiam revelar o seu aspecto inteligível. Em segundo lugar, sem o ser humano autenticamente apropriado, o jogo cósmico de revelação/ocultação (Ereignis) não seria revelado. Uma vez que Ser significa presentificação, e que Dasein significa o local onde esta presentificação apresenta-se (revela-se), Ser e Dasein estão intimamente relacionados. Por volta de 1945, Heidegger descreveu esta relação: Este “onde” (Wo). … pertence ao próprio Ser, “é” o próprio Ser, e por isso é chamado de Da-sein (GA6T2:358).
Although Heidegger developed the concept of Ereignis between 1936 and 1938, the seeds for this idea were planted in Being and Time and began to sprout in his 1930 essay, “On the Essence of Truth.” Here we are told that freedom constitutes the essence of truth or disclosedness. Freedom is not an arbitrary human power.
Man does not “possess” freedom as a property (Eigenschaft). At best, the converse holds: freedom, ek-sistent, disclosive Da-sein, possesses man-so originally that only it secures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to being as a whole as such which first founds all history. Only ex-sistent man is historical. “Nature” has no history. ([GA9:WGM, 85/219])
Already in this essay we can detect a shift from the notion of authenticity as self-appropriation (Eigentlichkeit) to the notion of authenticity as being appropriated (vereignet). In 1962, however, Heidegger claimed that Being and Time itself was already beyond the sphere of subjectivism, and that it is
strikingly clear that the ‘Being’ into which Being and Time inquired cannot long remain something that the human subject posits. It is rather Being, stamped as presence by its time-character (that) makes the approach to Dasein. As a result, even in the initial steps of the Being-question in Being and Time thought is called upon to undergo a change whose movement cor-responds with the turn (Kehre), (Richardson:LR, xix/xviii)
In another evaluation of Being and Time, this one written in 1946, he admitted that the “language of metaphysics” prevented that early (232) work from moving from the Being of human Dasein to Being as such. (GA9:WGM, 159/208) The language of metaphysics is subjectivistic. Even if he began to find his way beyond metaphysical thinking in 1930, for years thereafter he continued to talk of will as necessary to tear the veil away from Being. Overcoming subjectivism requires more than abandoning transcendental philosophy; voluntarism, too, is a form of subjectivism.
In his later work, Heidegger continued to develop the idea that human existence is not merely for itself but has a cosmic function. Man is “thrown” into the truth of Being; he is called on to guard this truth or openness. Heidegger even calls man “the shepherd of Being.” (GA9:WGM, 161-162/210) When he speaks of the fact that Being “needs” man (GA6T2:NII, 483), his point is twofold. First, without human openness beings would not be able to reveal their intelligible aspect. Second, without the authentically appropriated human being, the cosmic play of revelation/concealment (Ereignis) would not be revealed. Since Being means presencing, and since Dasein means the location where this presencing presents (reveals) itself, Being and Dasein are intimately related. Around 1945 Heidegger described this relation:
This “where” (Wo). ..belongs to Being itself, “is” Being itself, and is thus called Da-sein.
”The Dasein in man” is the essence which belongs to Being itself, in which essence, however, man belongs, indeed such that he has this Being to be. Da-sein concerns (geht…an) man …. Man becomes essentially (himself) when he enters properly into his essence. He stands in the un-hiddenness of being as the hidden place, at which Being is present (west) from its truth. (GA6T2:NII, 358)
Heidegger found it difficult to express the relation between Being and Dasein because of the limitations of German’s subject-predicate (”metaphysical”) grammar. It is even misleading to speak of a “relation” between them because this suggests that they are two things bound together by some external bond. The idea of Ereignis attempts, in part, to express the intimate correspondence between human existence (Da-) and Being or presencing (-sein). Heidegger gained insight for this idea in his examination of the thinking of Heraclitus, (233) who claims that man is most properly himself when he is attuned to the Logos, the self-gathering play of concealment and manifestness.