Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Theory and Criticism

Supervisor

Dr. Helen Fielding

Abstract

From the question of the meaning of being to the question concerning technology, the theme of questioning runs through the whole of Martin Heidegger’s work and plays a key role in the development of his thought. Despite its importance, however, it is a theme that has largely been left unexplored. This thesis is intended as the beginning of a corrective to a long overdue examination of Heideggerian questioning. I give a close, inner-textual analysis of questioning as it appears in Being and Time. By following Heidegger’s explicit commentary on and implicit use of questioning, I demonstrate that the question of being [die Seinsfrage] is not a one-time occurrence but a continuous process of opening up to genuinely new and original possibilities of being. Such questioning takes the form of a preparing to receive and be received by being. I “conclude” that Heidegger’s questioning is carried out in the service of a radical ontological revolution.

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