Martin Heidegger attempts to answer the question of Being by appealing to the terminology and methodology of Dasein, most commonly defined as existence. Dasein is not simply any kind of existence, however, but an existence that is unique from all other existences in that it asks the question of existence while existing in the existence itself. In other words, one must first understand Dasein in order to understand Being because Dasein is a kind of being that is concerned about its very Being. Contrary to the popular opinion that in order to truly and clearly comprehend any phenomenon, the subject which interrogates must necessarily stand outside of the object of the interrogation, Being cannot be understood from outside of Being. One may then argue that there is no outside of Being, a point to which we shall return later in this paper; therefore, every being is fit to address the the question of Being. Although every being is within Being itself, not every being asks the question of Being; hence Dasein alone can elucidate Being because Dasein is Being for Heidegger. It is a pure expression of Being and thus chosen to designate Being because its essence lies rather in the fact that is has always to be its Being as its own (54). Logically speaking, if the object of which Dasein interrogates is Being, and it accomplishes this task by interrogating itself, a being in Being, then the object of interrogation, Being, is precisely the subject which performs the act of interrogation, Dasein; it follows that Dasein is nothing but Being itself.Dasein answers the question of Being by disclosing Being through the revealing or unveiling of itself. In Being and Time, Heidegger articulates the way Dasein unveils itself by drawing a distinction between an existentiell and existential understanding of Dasein. By claiming that Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence, in terms of its possibility to be itself or not to be itself (54), a...
