Being

Definition

Being (German Sein) is the most fundamental question of Heidegger's philosophy: not this or that particular being (Seiendes), but the meaning of Being itself — the question Western metaphysics has, in Heidegger's account, forgotten by reducing Being to mere presence (ousia). For architecture, Being is the ontological ground of dwelling: building and dwelling are not merely activities among others but ways in which human beings (Dasein) exist — "we build and have built because we dwell." Being thus names the horizon against which the phenomenological concepts of this wiki (dwelling, the fourfold, being-in-the-world, ready-to-hand) acquire their sense. It also connects to the Gadamerian recovery of ontology from the tradition of metaphysics.

Key Thinkers

• Martin Heidegger — the question of Being; the ontological difference; the forgetting of Being.
• Hans-Georg Gadamer — ontology and understanding in the wake of Heidegger.

Related Concepts

• Dwelling — the existential mode of Being that building accomplishes.
• Being-in-the-World — Dasein's fundamental structure.
• Presence — the metaphysical category Derrida critiques as the "forgetting" of Being's difference.
• Metaphysics — the tradition that reduced Being to presence.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Gadamer for Architects — Being and ontology in the hermeneutic tradition.
• Building Dwelling Thinking — Being, dwelling, and the fourfold.