48 Part I: Studies
being “belongs” to the clearing, is “the guardian of the clearing,” but is not the whole of the clearing, not the clearing itself (GA 89: 663; ZS: 223). In addition, at several points in his later writings, he yokes his other distinctive names for the Ur-phenomenon to Being itself. Thus, with respect to Es gibt, he comments in the Letter on Humanism that “the ‘it’ [es] that here ‘gives’ [gibt] is Being itself” (GA 9: 334). In the Parmenides lecture course, he italicizes the statement, “the open is Being itself” (GA 54: 224). And in the 1944 lecture course on Heraclitus, he reads both the region (Gegend) and the expanse (Weite) as naming Being itself (GA 55: 337).
In the later work, Heidegger more often referred to “the human being” (der Mensch) rather than to “Dasein,” his word of choice for the unfolding (or “essencing”) of the human being that he employed in Being and Time and in the early work generally. One reason for this change appears to be that he had come to understand Da-sein in a broader and richer way to refer to the essencing of every being, and not just the human being, from out of Being. Consequently, the term “human Dasein” would be more in keeping with the basic themes of the later Heidegger. Nevertheless, in the later work, he did occasionally refer to “Dasein” as the name for the human being, and especially when he was recalling key passages from his early work.
In one sense, the matter here is simple: Heidegger was centrally concerned with the “relation” (Bezug, Beziehung) between Being and the human being. This relation is special and even exalted for Heidegger because it is the human being who clears the clearing in a privileged manner; that is, the human being is able to correspond to Being in “language,” in art and word. Generally, his reflections circle around this core concern: not Being alone, not the human being alone, but the relation between Being and the human being. Parmenides’ dictum that Being (einai) and thinking (noein) belong together guided Heidegger’s thinking from beginning to end.