In the years after Being and Time, Heidegger found himself in a philosophical crisis. This made itself known in various ways. It was not merely that the second part of Being and Time (as announced in § 8) was held back. But even the third division of part 1 was provided only after the fact in the form of a lecture course from the summer of 1927. The lecture courses that followed offered only tentative experiments. The project of an “absolute science of being” was not realized.1 Similarly, the undertaking of a “metontology” remained just an unfinished torso.2 The concomitant elaboration of a metaphysics of freedom likewise remained rudimentary.
Then something came to the philosopher that well-nigh revolutionized his thinking: a narrative.3 Philosophy appeared frozen in lifeless positions. Being and Time was an academic success, to be sure, but this did not somehow mean that academic philosophy as a whole was moved by it. Heidegger viewed the unceasing proliferation of academic research with growing intolerance. The era itself had fallen into an economic crisis. It could not continue like this. Political changes announced themselves; first tentatively, then with violence.
Already in Being and Time the philosopher had elucidated what he understood by “destiny” (Geschick).4 “Destiny” would