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The Age of the World Picture

two. What is essential in a fundamental metaphysical position embraces:


1. The manner and mode in which man is man, i.e., is himself; the manner of the coming to presence [Wesensart] of selfhood, which is not at all synonymous with I-ness, but rather is determined out of the relation to Being as such

2. The interpretation of the coming to presence [Wessensauslegung] of the Being of whatever is

3. The delineation of the coming to presence [Wesensentwurf] of truth

4. The sense in which, in any given instance, man is measure


None of these essential moments in a fundamental metaphysical position may be understood apart from the others. Each one always betokens, from the outset, the whole of a fundamental metaphysical position. Precisely why and in what respect these four moments sustain and structure in advance a fundamental metaphysical position as such is a question that can no longer be asked or answered from out of metaphysics and by means of metaphysics. It is a question that is already being uttered from out of the overcoming of metaphysics.

To be sure, for Protagoras, that which is does remain related to man as ἐγώ. What kind of relation to the I is this? The ἐγώ tarries within the horizon of the unconcealment that is meted out to it always as this particular unconcealment. Accordingly, it apprehends everything that presences within this horizon as something that is. The apprehending of what presences is grounded in this tarrying Within the horizon of unconcealment. Through its tarrying [das Verweilen] in company with what presences, the belongingness of the I into the midst of what presences is. This belonging to what presences in the open fixes the boundaries between that which presences and that which absents itself. From out of these boundaries man receives and keeps safe the measure of that which presences and that which absents. Through man's being limited to that which, at any particular time, is unconcealed, there is given to him the measure that always confines a self to this or that. Man does not, from out of some detached I-ness, set forth the measure to which


Martin Heidegger (GA 5) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays