knowledge. And it must remain undecided whether the "how," the manner of {GA 14: 39} Being of this place, is already determined (but not yet knowable) or whether it itself results only from the taking of the step, in the awakening into Appropriation which we mentioned.
We attempted once more to characterize the fundamental intention and movement of the lecture. This led again to a reflection on Being and Time.
From the point of view of metaphysical thinking, the whole path of the lecture, that is, the determination of Being, in terms of Appropriation could be interpreted as a return to the ground, to the origin. The relation of Appropriation and Being would then be the relation of the a priori to the a posteriori. This a priori is not to be understood only as the a priori of and for knowledge which has become dominant in modern philosophy. It would be a matter of a causal nexus which could be more precisely determined in Hegel's sense as the reabsorption and incorporation of Being in Appropriation.
This interpretation was also plausible on account of the term "fundamental ontology" used to characterize the intention and the method of Being and Time—a term which was then dropped precisely with the intention of countering this misunderstanding. The decisive thing which must be heeded here is the relation of fundamental ontology to the sole question of the meaning of Being prepared for in Being and Time. According to Being and Time, fundamental ontology is the ontological analysis of Dasein.
"Therefore fundamental ontology, from which alone all other ontologies can take their rise, must be sought in the existential analytic of Dasein" (Being and Time, p. 34). According to this, it looks as if fundamental ontology were the foundation for ontology itself which is still lacking, but is to be built upon that foundation. When it is a matter of the question about the meaning of Being, whereas meaning is projected meaning which occurs in and as the understanding of Being which constitutes the fundamental characteristic of Dasein, then the development of Dasein's horizon of understanding is the condition for any development of an ontology which, so it seems, can only {GA 14: 40} be built upon the fundamental ontology of Dasein.