The next major work in which Heidegger takes up the task of being-historical thinking, following Contributions to Philosophy, is Mindfulness. Although Heidegger composed this text in 1938–39, it was not published until 1997, as volume 66 of the Complete Edition. This volume containing the original German text, which was edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, also includes an appendix that contains two other texts. In the first of these texts, “A Retrospective Look at the Pathway” (1937–39), Heidegger ponders the development of this thought from his doctoral dissertation in 1913 to Contributions to Philosophy (1936–38). In the second text, “The Wish and the Will” (1937–38), he outlines his unpublished writings in seven parts.
Mindfulness is among his most subtle and provocative of all of Heidegger’s voluminous writings. Specifically, he shows how philosophy comes to an explicit self-awareness of its mission by enacting being-historical thinking. Philosophy does not attain self-understanding of its character as one academic discipline among others, but rather arrives at this awareness by proceeding along the path of thinking. This path spans the entire history of philosophy and ultimately originates from the other beginning. Mindfulness (Besinnung) marks the arrival of inceptual thinking, which in the self-understanding of its mission is equally aware of the danger posed by the modern epoch of machination. Following on the footsteps of Contributions to Philosophy, Mindfulness exemplifies Heidegger’s initial attempt to outline the nexus between the metaphysics as the concealment of being and the rise of the modern program to reduce entities to their instrumental uses and exploit nature. Heidegger thereby provides one of the first glimpses into his attempt to address the origin of technology and the global danger it poses.
In Mindfulness, Heidegger outlines the key elements of being-historical thinking. But, at the center of this work is the importance of cultivating the words to facilitate that task, the distinctive language for thinking the truth of being. In Mindfulness, Heidegger initiates this journey that is already on the way to language. The path of this journey emerges, insofar as thinking both safeguards its grounding words and discovers in language its proper place of dwelling. In this way, Mindfulness follows the curvature of the turning that brings thinking into its own by virtue of its residence within language.
Besinnung (GA 66)