it, giving us hints (GA82: 354, 357). Those hints include the fact that “from early on,” being has meant “the encountering presence-to” (das angegnende Anwesen) (GA82: 363).
As for time, it is the “forecourt” (Vorhof) (GA82: 348) or “preliminary name” (Vorname) (GA82: 353) for what Heidegger now prefers to call “the truth of being” (GA82: 348; cf. GA9, 1949: 376–77/285–86; GA74: 9/6). “Truth” here, of course, does not mean propositional correctness, but unconcealment or clearing. Being and Time should perhaps be renamed “clearing and presentness” (GA14, 1964: 90/73). But the clearing involves concealment. Thus “presence (being) belongs in the clearing of self-concealing (time)” (GA11, 1962: 151/ WJR: xx). Since the clearing is characterized by or originates in Ereignis, another new name for Being and Time might be “presence and appropriation” (GA100, 1950s: 173; cf. 175, 177).
The 1962 lecture “Time and Being” is Heidegger’s most public statement on being, time, and appropriation. Here he describes Ereignis as the “it” that “gives” both time and being (GA14: 24/19). Time and being as presence mutually determine each other, but appropriation is the source of both. “In the sending of the destiny of being, in the reaching of time, is shown an appropriating, an owning-over of being as presence and time as the realm of the open into what is proper to them. What determines both time and being in what is proper to them, i.e. in their belonging together, we call appropriation” (GA14: 24/19).
Of course, “clearing” and “appropriation” are no less in need of interpretation than “time,” and whatever time may be, it still plays a central role in Heidegger’s thought and his history of metaphysics (Hughes and Stendera, 2024). He does not renounce his early account of Dasein’s temporality; he repeats it in the Zollikon Seminars of the 1960s (GA89: 179–377/29–67). But he also attempts to rethink it: “Time transports us into . . . the unity of having-been, presence, [and] the future”; this threefold unity is time-space (GA12, 1957–58: 201–2/106). Time-space allows meaningful proximity – and thus, presence. So “time is four-dimensional: The first dimension, which gathers all, is nearness” (GA9, 1949: 377n/286n).
The concept of nearness links time to appropriation and clearing. A clearing is not primarily an illuminated spot, but an opening that has been cleared – a place of clearance. Clearance is room to maneuver – to handle, encounter, and consider things. Since it provides contact with beings, the clearing grants nearness; but it must also involve distance, for a confluence of everything, the ultimate closeness, would be closed rather than open, leaving no space for perspectives and possibilities. Furthermore, for nearness to be significant, it must involve owning or belonging, as well as their opposites. I perceive a piece of trash, over there in the corner of my yard, as alien: It does not belong. I pick it