Conclusion

Amy E. Varela

pp. 621-641

in: William Richardson, Heidegger, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1963

Abstract

If at this point we draw our study to a close, the reason is not that we have reached the end of the way but only that we have discerned its direction with sufficient clarity to permit us to comprehend its sense. We wish now to prescind from the different steps we have followed and to meditate the sense of the way as such. We conclude with an effort at χρίσις provided that this word be understood in what for Heidegger himself is its genuinely Greek sense: the cutting off of a being (χρίνειν) from all else by setting it within its limits, where "limit" must be understood not as that point where something ceases but rather where it begins to be what it is. Our critique, then, has as its purpose to let-be-seen the limits within which Heidegger is what he is for contemporary thought.