91
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e 
a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
F r a n ç o i s  r a f f o u l *
introduction
it is striking to note that when the question of history first emerged 
in heidegger’s path of thinking, namely in the 1915 essay, “The Concept 
of time in historical science,”1 it was in contrast with and in opposi-
tion to the motif of nature and natural sciences; as if history in its proper 
being could only be accessed from such a break with nature, an “other” 
of history that nonetheless will continue to haunt heidegger’s conceptu-
alization of history. Nature will figure as history’s aporia, and will be vis-
ible including and perhaps especially when heidegger attempts to sub-
ordinate nature to (historical) time: it is in order to overcome this aporia 
that heidegger attempts to ontologize history away from the natural, 
the biological, the ontical. in heidegger’s attempts to think what is most 
proper to historical time and to reappropriate the ontological senses of 
history, one can still read this original aporia and its persistent effects, 
through the transformed oppositions of the mobility of life (Beweghteit) 
versus natural movement (Bewegung), the break with the theoretical and 
the grasping of historicity as life’ s self-reflexion, historicized facticity 
versus natural factuality, the Geschichte/Historie distinction, authentic 
temporality versus inauthentic or natural time, time of the psyche ver-
sus natural time. This original tension, if not contradiction, constitutes 
both the origin of the thinking of the historical in heidegger’s work and 
its very aporia: history remains in a relation to nature as to a non or 
* louisiana state university, Baton rouge
1 heidegger, M. (2007), “The Concept of time in the science of history,” (translated by 
Thomas sheehan), in: Becoming Heidegger (ed. Kisiel, t. and sheehan,t.). evanston, il: North-
western university Press, pp.60–72. essays from this volume will hereafter be cited as Bh, fol-
lowed by page number. i wish to thank Gregory schufreider for his help in the writing of this 
essay. My thanks go as well to andrew Johnson for his telling comments on a draft of the essay.
92
P o l i G r a F i
pre-historical ground that both threatens it and makes it possible. i will 
attempt to follow this aporia, from its first articulation in the 1915 lec-
ture through heidegger’s overcoming of the epistemological horizon of 
the question, and the eventual subordination of nature under historical 
time in Being and Time. i will make forays in later texts from the thir-
ties with the introduction of the notion of earth – that some commen-
tators have claimed points to an archaic pre- or non-historical “nature” 
or “essence” – and question the reversal that one notes in heidegger’s 
thinking with respect to the relation between nature and history: far 
from being subjected to historical time, nature as “earth” will be said to 
be the “ground” of history. ultimately this raises the question, if not of 
the historicity or nonhistoricity of the human, of the aporia of history 
itself as an inappropriable event, as we will see this original aporia rein-
scribed in the seizing of history as eventfulness, and its happening from 
a withdrawal. it will ultimately appear that we are no longer facing an 
opposition or an aporia, but the secret origin of historical time as such, 
always originating from an opaque ground, a withdrawal and a mystery, 
designated in the thirties by heidegger as earth. history would be here 
“primal history,” emerging “from nature as earth, which is deeper and 
more mysterious than the nature discovered by science.”2 This is why the 
opposition between nature and history ultimately proves inadequate, 
still too representational and epistemic: The opposition between nature 
and history was but the ontic characterization of the ontological being 
of history as arising out of a secret ground.
i. The access to historical time: The Break with Nature
in the formal trial lecture which he delivered in Freiburg on July 27, 
1915, “The Concept of time in the science of history” (“Der Zeitbegriff 
in der Geschichtswissenschaft”), heidegger leaves behind the logical ques-
tions that had occupied him in earlier works (whether in The Doctrine 
of Judgment in Psychologism or in his 1916 habilitation thesis, The Theory 
of Categories and Signification in Duns Scotus) to focus on the motif of 
2 Polt, r. (2010), “Being and time,” in: Martin Heidegger. Key Concepts. Durham, uK: acu-
men, p.76.
93
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
the historical, first grasped in a concrete, pre-phenomenological manner. 
For the concept of time in historical science rests upon a lived, phenom-
enological and concrete experience, which heidegger begins to explore 
in an otherwise epistemological essay. This is why it is to correct to state 
that even though these reflections take place within an epistemological 
horizon, they nonetheless already anticipate the ontological inquiries 
of the twenties regarding the being of time and history.3 in fact, in his 
opening remarks, heidegger from the outset draws the limits of an epis-
temological approach, as he explains that the “emphasis on epistemo-
logical problems is born out of a legitimate and lively awareness of the 
need and value of critique, but it does not permit philosophy’s questions 
about ultimate issues and goals to achieve their intrinsic significance” 
(Bh, 61). Thus it is legitimate to note that if heidegger does share with 
Dilthey the view that there is a radical difference between the methods 
of the natural and human sciences, yet “over and above the purely epis-
temological problem, some ontological considerations already appear 
about what constitutes ‘true’ time, which is not physical time, and which 
is characterized by diversity and heterogeneity.”4
heidegger begins by defining the object of his inquiry, namely, the 
determination of the concept of historical time: “we shall single out 
and clarify a specific individual category (or basic logical element): the 
concept of time.” More specifically, “What we need to articulate is this 
determination of the concept of ‘time in general’ as the concept of ‘his-
torical time’” (Bh, 62). significantly, heidegger proposes to access the 
meaning of historical time in contrast with the concept of time in natu-
ral sciences: “The peculiar structure of the concept of time in the sci-
ence of history will no doubt stand out more clearly if we contrast it 
3 in fact, one could claim that this early essay anticipates several key aspects of Being and Time 
(where it is mentioned by heidegger), and significantly echoed in the contrast between original 
versus natural time. see John van Buren’s clarification in his editor’s introduction to (2002) 
Supplements. albany, Ny: suNy Press, p. 5. also, in his editor’s introduction to Becoming Hei-
degger, Theodore Kisiel stresses appropriately that this essay represents “the proto-development 
of the distinction between the originative time of the unique self and the derivative time of 
science and the clock”. Becoming Heidegger, editor’s introduction, p. xviii. i will return to the 
question of original time versus natural and clock time later in this essay.
4 Dastur, F. (1998), Heidegger and the Question of Time (translated by François raffoul and 
David Pettigrew). atlantic highlands, New Jersey: humanities Press international, p.2.
94
P o l i G r a F i
with a very different articulation of the structure of time. to do so, we 
shall briefly characterize the concept of time in natural sciences – spe-
cifically physics” (Bh, 63). one finds there the first characterization of 
the time of historical sciences, which is defined in distinction with the 
time of natural sciences.5 at issue is to approach the concept of time in 
a way that is irreducible to a “purely logical or chronological apprehen-
sion” (Jollivet 2009: 26). historical time is not reducible to the logical, 
but points to life itself in its specific eventfulness. as we indicated, this 
represents both the origin of a reflection that will always seek to think 
the specific and proper being of historical time, and a constitutive in-
ternal limit through which historical time is each time confronted by an 
aporetic situation: the relation to and distinction with nature. at every 
stage of heidegger’s reflections on historical time, one will encounter 
this aporia, necessitating the analyses to always more distinguish proper 
ontological history from inadequate, ontic or inauthentic representa-
tions. in this first essay, heidegger thus finds access to the problematic 
of history through a break with nature, that is, in the context of epis-
temological questions and disciplines, with natural sciences. More pre-
cisely, heidegger attempts to determine the specific nature of the con-
cept of time which intervenes in historical science, in contrast with the 
concept of time one finds in natural sciences. While time in the natural 
sciences is constituted as a homogenous, spatialized universal flow, al-
lowing for measurement of motion (“the relation of motion and time 
has to do with measuring motion by means of time”, he explains, Bh, 
65), and therefore reduced to being “a mere parameter,”6 historical time 
is characterized by a qualitative heterogeneity, engaging a lived meaning.
in natural sciences, as heidegger states, “the function of time is to 
make measurement possible” (Bh, 66), and time “is a necessary moment 
in the definition of motion.” indeed, as heidegger expresses it “concisely 
put”, the “object of physics is law-governed motion” (Bh, 65). in such 
an approach, time becomes a homogeneous flow, reduced to a “homo-
5 servanne Jollivet stresses the irreducibility of historical time from the paradigm of nature: 
“Purely qualitative, this usage [from historical science] excludes the simple transposition of the 
method proper to natural sciences.” Jollivet, s. (2009) Heidegger, Sens et Histoire. Paris: PuF, p. 
27.
6 Dastur, F., Heidegger and the Question of Time, p. 2.
95
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
geneous ordering of points, a scale, and a parameter” (Bh, 66). time 
becomes the measure of motion. Further, time in this context is reduced 
to simply function as the “condition of possibility for mathematically 
determining the object of physics (i.e., motion)” (Bh, 66). This in fact 
is harmonious with the traditional metaphysical account of time, which 
is always understood in terms of the measurement of motion, within 
the general context of a philosophy of nature (hence Bergson’s critique 
of spatialized time). heidegger makes the point is the Kassel lectures: 
“time, says aristotle, is what is counted in motion with respect to the 
before and after. This definition has remained essentially unchanged 
into modern times. Kant, too, determines time by starting from an ap-
prehension of nature” (Bh, 270).
in contrast to this “natural” time, time in history engages events, hei-
degger also specifying that the object of the science of history “is human 
beings” (Bh, 68). indeed, heidegger uses the word Ereignis in the 1915 
essay to name such historical event (Bh, 71). he makes the claim that 
time-reckoning systems in calendars always begin with a historically 
significant event (he gives the examples of the founding of the city of 
rome, the birth of Christ, the hegira), that is, with a “historically signif-
icant event [Ereignis]” (Bh, 72).7 The starting-point of time-reckoning 
is a qualitative event. heidegger then differentiates historical time from 
the time of physics by such reference to the event: “Consequently, the 
concept of time in the science of history has none of the homogeneity 
characterizing the concept of time in the natural sciences. That is also 
why historical time cannot be expressed mathematically by way of a se-
ries, for there is no law determining how the time-periods succeed one 
another” (Bh, 71). heidegger thus severs historical time from a quanti-
tative approach, and approaches it in terms of a qualitative eventfulness. 
“Time-periods [Zeiten] in history are distinguished qualitatively” (Bh, 71). 
Certainly, heidegger concedes, the historian works with a concept of 
time as a certain “ordering of points,” that is, he or she works with his-
torical dates, with “quantities” such as the number 1515 for the battle of 
7 Compare with that passage from the 1934 summer semester course: “history [Geschichte] is 
an event [Ereignis], insofar as it happens” [geschieht]. heidegger, M. (2009), Logic as The Ques-
tion Concerning the Essence of Language. albany, Ny: suNy, p. 74. hereafter cited as Ga 38, 
followed by the page number of the translation.
96
P o l i G r a F i
Marignan. yet, such a number is not treated as a quantity (that is, as an 
element within the numerical series from 1 to infinity, or as a number 
per se), and the historian is not interested in dates as dates, but consid-
ers them only insofar as they refer to meaningful events.8 a date thus 
has “meaning and value within the science of history only as regards its 
historically significant content” (Bh, 71).
such content is given by the event, which heidegger also thematizes 
as the presence of life in history, as when he explains that the “qualita-
tive factor of the historical concept of time is nothing but the congealing 
– the crystallization – of an objectification of life within history” (Bh, 
71). a decisive passage, as heidegger clearly states that the concept of 
historical time needs to be grounded in the phenomenological event of 
life itself, and that the concept itself is grounded in a phenomenological 
pre-theoretical domain. Therefore, the question “when” has two differ-
ent meanings in history and in physics. When asking about the “when” 
of a historical event (Ereignis), “i am asking not about its quantity but 
about its place in a qualitative historical context” (Bh, 71). What is spe-
cific to the concept of time in history is that it designates an event: “Thus 
the concept ‘the famine in Fulda in the year 750’ indicates a very specific 
individual event [Ereignis] and accordingly is a historical concept” (Bh, 
67). This is why historical dates are only “convenient tokens for count-
ing,” but in themselves have no meaning. What gives them meaning is 
a qualitative determination. This also implies that history as a science, 
as historiography, rests upon and presupposes historical reality itself 
(which still demands to be elaborated and clarified ontologically), mak-
ing necessary heidegger’s distinction between Historie and Geschichte.
ii. The Break with the Theoretical:  
The Historie/Geschichte Distinction
This original determining distinction between history and nature 
will be radicalized in the following years in heidegger’s ontologizing of 
8 We leave aside here the whole discussion in section 79 of the so-called “datability” (Datier-
barkeit) that Dasein deploys in its concernful existence in the world (and the time-reckoning 
that is the ground for such dating), and which is the existential basis for historical dating. see 
sZ, p. 407.
97
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
the problematic of history. For the epistemological horizon proves in-
adequate to the appropriate raising of the question of historical time. 
indeed, as early as 1919, in an early Freiburg lecture course, heidegger 
explained that “the theoretical itself and as such refers back to some-
thing pre-theoretical,” so that, on the way to an originary phenomenol-
ogy of the facticity of life, later renamed Dasein, “the primacy of the 
theoretical must be broken.”9 such pre-theoretical basis is approached 
by heidegger as life, and more precisely factical life, so as to avoid any 
psychologism, a life that will be characterized as “ultimate fact.” What 
is indeed most striking is how in that period heidegger identifies life 
as the fundamental Fact, the central concern of his thought, the very 
matter of phenomenology. Phenomenology, for heidegger at that time, 
is a phenomenology of life itself. in Phenomenological Interpretations of 
Aristotle, heidegger states from the outset: “‘Factical life’: ‘life’ expresses 
a basic phenomenological category; it signifies a basic phenomenon.”10 
Far from reducing it to an ontic, regional domain, subordinated to a 
prior, more originary, ontological level, heidegger on the contrary ap-
proaches life as the fundamental fact — indeed as “something ultimate” 
(Pia, p.62) —to which all thought must return as to its ground. he 
also places himself explicitly within the tradition of life-philosophy in 
its various forms, which is the foreshadowing of a genuine phenome-
nology of what he terms “factical life”. he recognizes, for instance, that 
some of his analyses “came forth already in modern life-philosophy”, a 
philosophical movement which he praises in these terms: “i understand 
[life-philosophy] to be no mere fashionable philosophy but, for its time, 
an actual attempt to come to philosophy rather than babble idly over 
academic frivolities” (Pia, p.61).
heidegger thus seeks to establish that life in its givenness is not a the-
oretical object, does not take a theoretical distance with itself, but rather 
interprets itself in a radically immanent manner.11 such life is “lived life” 
9 heidegger, M. (2002), Toward the Definition of Philosophy (Ga 56/57: translated by ted 
sadler. london: Continuum), p.50.
10 heidegger, M. (2001), Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle. Bloomington, indiana: 
indiana university Press, p. 61. hereafter cited as Pia, followed by pagination of the translation.
11 on this point, see my (2008), “The Facticity of life and the Need for Philosophy,” in: Re-
thinking Facticity. albany, Ny: suNy Press, in particular pp. 73–77.
98
P o l i G r a F i
(Toward the Definition of Philosophy, 40), not in the sense of a psychical 
process, not as Erlebnis, but indeed and already as Er-eignis, appropria-
tive event. “The experiences are appropriative events in so far as they 
live out of one’s ownness, and life only lives in this way” [Die Erlebnisse 
sind Er-eignisse, insofern sie aus dem Eigenen leben und Leben nur so lebt] 
(Toward the Definition of Philosophy, p. 64, tr. slightly modified). and 
since life understood as Ereignis constitutes the essence of the historical 
as such,12 one can see how the opposition between quantitative time 
and qualitative historical time from the 1915 lecture finds itself rethought 
in terms of an originary hermeneutics of factical life: historical time 
now designates life’s proper motion (Beweghteit) – distinguished from 
the Bewegung or natural movement of natural entities – in its restless-
ness and self-unfolding, which heidegger also calls a relation of effec-
tuation or enactment (Vollzug).13 he calls this movement “historicity” 
(Geschichlichkeit), borrowing the term from Count york via Dilthey. in 
fact, one needs to approach life essentially as a motion, a specific move-
ment. heidegger writes: “in our rough characterization of life, we have 
often spoken of actualization, nexus of actualization. elsewhere, people 
12 We thus read in this 1919 course that life “is itself historical in an absolute sense”. Toward the 
Definition of Philosophy, p. 18. one notes here the clear break with husserl and a certain anhisto-
ricity of husserlian phenomenology, which heidegger explicitly denounces in the 1923 summer 
semester course, heidegger, M. (1999), Ontology. The Hermeneutics of Facticity. Bloomington, 
iN: indiana university Press, p. 59. referring to “the absence of history in phenomenology,” 
heidegger pokes fun of its presuppositions: “one naively believes that the subject matter will, 
no matter what the position of looking at it, be obtained in plain and simple evidence.” however, 
phenomenology must become a historical method, and “for this it is necessary to disclose the 
history of the covering up of the subject matter,” heidegger adds, anticipating on the Destruk-
tion as method of ontology which will be thematized in Being and Time and The Basic Problems 
of Phenomenology.
13 on the historicity of life as enactment, see Martin heidegger’s (1998) “Comments on Karl 
Jaspers’s Psychology of Worldviews,” in: Pathmarks, (ed. William McNeill). Ny: Cambridge 
university Press, p. 28. as eric Nelson notes, “heidegger first discussed history in terms of the 
priority of event (Ereignis) and enactment (Vollzug), which are used in his early lecture courses 
in opposition to the traditional concepts of subject and object, and in terms of the difference 
between “lived history” (Geschichte) and historical science (Historie) in the situation of crisis and 
engagement with Lebens- and Existenzphilosophie after the First World War.” “history, event, 
and alterity in heidegger and levinas,” in: Between Levinas and Heidegger (ed. eric sean Nelson 
and John Drabinski), under contract with suNy Press. The emphasis is placed on “historical 
life” in its motility and facticity as opposed to the science of history, which presupposes it while 
ignoring it.
99
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
speak of process, stream, the flowing character of life. This latter way 
of speaking is motivated by and follows a fundamental aspect in which 
we encounter life, and we take it as a directive toward the ensemble of 
the basic structures of life as movement, motility” (Pia, 85). also: “The 
movedness [Bewegtheit] of factical life can be provisionally interpreted 
and described as unrest. The ‘how’ of this unrest, in its fullness as a phe-
nomenon, determines facticity” (Pia, 70).
implicit in these distinctions is a critique of the reliance on the meta-
physical and epistemological primacy of natural sciences, as well as the 
beginning of an ontological derivation of nature as such. heidegger 
takes issue with the positioning of objectivity – and nature – as the 
standard model for being. he articulates such a critique in the following 
way: “it is not the case that objects are first present as bare realities, as 
objects in some sort of natural state, and that they then in the course of 
our experience receive the garb of a value-character, so they do not have 
to run around naked. This is the case neither in the direction of the ex-
perience of the surrounding world nor in the direction of the approach 
and the sequence of interpretation, as if the constitution of nature could, 
even to the smallest extent, supply the foundation for higher types of 
objects. On the contrary, the objectivity, ‘nature,’ first arises out of the basic 
sense of the Being of objects of the lived, experienced, encountered world” 
(Pia, 69, my emphasis). objectivity, nature, are here derived from a 
more primordial sense of being, namely, life in its facticity.
For heidegger, this break with the theoretical, with the epistemologi-
cal, in a new approach that he referred to in the 1919 course as a “pri-
mordial science” (Urwissenschaft)14, appears clearly in the opening pages 
of the 1925 summer semester course, History of the Concept of Time, the 
sub-title of which reads: “Prolegomena to the Phenomenology of his-
tory (Geschichte) and Nature (Natur)”. heidegger begins by noting the 
epistemological horizon of the very distinction between nature and his-
tory, through their respective empirical disciplines, natural sciences and 
human sciences. however, he immediately raises a doubt with respect 
to the self-sufficiency or legitimacy of this scientific approach: for on 
the one hand, “history and nature would be accessible only insofar as 
14 heidegger, M. Toward the Definition of Philosophy, in particular pp. 17–26.
100
P o l i G r a F i
they are objects thematized in these sciences,” which would not give us 
“the actual area of subject matter out of which the thematic of the sci-
ences is first carved;”15 and on the other hand, due to this situation in 
which history as a science misses the “authentic reality of history,” one 
may stress that “it might well be that something essential necessarily 
remains closed” to the scientific way of disclosure. second, heidegger 
attempts to refute the opposition between nature and history, treating 
it as a strictly scientific division (“the separation comes first from these 
sciences”), one which would not be validated phenomenologically (“the 
separation of the two domains may well indicate that an original and 
undivided context of subject matter remains hidden,” hCt, 2). instead 
of remaining with the “fact” of these scientific divisions, it is a matter 
of leaping ahead “into the primary field of subject matter of a poten-
tial science and first make available the basic structure of the possible 
object of the science” (hCt, 2, slightly modified). This does not mean, 
heidegger clarifies, a phenomenology of each of these disciplines, nor a 
phenomenology of their respective areas, domains of being or subject-
matter: “here it is not a matter of a phenomenology of the sciences of 
history and nature, or even of a phenomenology of history and nature as 
objects of these sciences” (hCt, 2). in other words, the scope is neither 
a phenomenology of science, nor an investigation as a regional ontology.
it is a matter instead “of a phenomenological disclosure of the origi-
nal kind of being and constitution of both” (hCt, 2). how can this be 
achieved? heidegger answers: “by disclosing the constitution of the be-
ing of that field”. This would constitute the “original science” of which 
heidegger spoke in the 1919 course (here referred to as “a productive 
logic,” hCt, 2), because it investigates a domain prior to its scientific 
thematization. and what is that primary field prior to the domains of 
nature and history? original Dasein. indeed, sciences must receive “the 
possibility of their being”, heidegger tells us, “from their meaning in 
human Dasein”. and original Dasein means: original historicity and 
temporality. This is why the next section is titled, “Prolegomena to a 
15 heidegger, M. (1985), History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena (Ga 20; translated by 
Theodore Kisiel). Bloomington, in: indiana university Press, p.1. hereftaer cited as hCt, fol-
lowed by page number.
101
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
phenomenology of history and nature under the guidance of the history 
of the concept of time” (my emphasis), as both nature and history can be 
said to stand under the horizon of time. The task is to reveal the horizon 
within which history and nature can be set against, and find the “actual 
constituents which underlie history and nature” (hCt, 6). Thus, what 
heidegger seeks to achieve is a grasp of nature and history before scien-
tific thematization (“We wish to exhibit history and nature so that we 
may regard them before scientific elaboration”, hCt, 5). This requires 
an overcoming of the theoretical or epistemological.
This overcoming of the theoretical or epistemological – as well as 
the exhibiting of the ontological basis of historical time – is achieved 
through heidegger’s problematizing of the distinction between the 
terms Historie and Geschichte, a distinction which he had not made in 
the 1915 essay, and which we find for the first time addressed by him the-
matically in the 1925 Kassel lectures,16 although already in the 1920–1921 
winter semester course on the Phenomenology of Religious Life, we read: 
“We mean the historical in the way we encounter it in life; not in the 
science of history”.17 The problem lies in the fact that the question of 
history is usually approached from historical science (Historie), a disci-
pline which for heidegger does not master its own subject matter, histori-
cal reality itself (Geschichte). in The History of the Concept of Time, for 
instance, heidegger reminds the reader hat “the historiological sciences 
are currently troubled by the question of historical reality itself,” a situ-
ation presumably made worse by the fact that “historiological sciences 
generally dispensed with any philosophical reflection”! (hCt, 14). one 
could add here that Historie is an investigation of ontic “facts” while Ge-
16 heidegger, M. “Wilhelm Dilthey’s research and the Current struggle for a historical 
Worldview”, in: Becoming Heidegger, pp. 238–274. it is interesting to note here that indeed hei-
degger had used the terms – in particular the adjectives geschitlich and historish — interchange-
ably in earlier courses and lectures, for instance in the 1919/1921 “Comments on Karl Jaspers’s 
Psychology of Worldviews” (translated by John van Buren) in: Pathmarks, pp. 1–38; see note 2, p. 
365 for clarifications]. heidegger wrote of “life as history (Geschichte)” (Ga 58, p. 81), but also 
of “historisches Leben” or of life as being historical (historish) in Ga 56/57, p.21, tr. p. 18. i owe 
this last observation to sophie-Jan arrien, in: (2001), “Vie et histoire (heidegger 1919–1923),” 
in: Philosophie. Paris: les editions de Minuit, n. 69, p.57, note 20.
17 heidegger, M. (2004), The Phenomenology of Religious Life (translated by Matthias Frischt 
and Jennifer anna Gosetti-Ferencei). Bloomington, in: indiana university Press, p. 23.
102
P o l i G r a F i
schichte designates the being of history. Historie presupposes Geschichte, 
while missing it.18
one knows how in §74 of Being and Time heidegger makes the 
distinction between Geschichte and Historie, history as eventfulness of 
Dasein’s being and history as the science of objectively present objects 
(Objektsgeschichte). history as Geschichte designates the absolutely origi-
nary history (ursprüngliche Geschichte schlechthin) whereas history as 
Historie designates the objectification of Geschichte. Thus, “whereas Ge-
schichte refers to history articulated from the horizon of the question of 
the meaning of being, which is rearticulated as the history of the event 
and truth of being, Historie refers to the models of history found in 
the ordinary understanding of history as presence and re-presentation, 
and which continue to inform historiography and the philosophy of 
history.” 19 Further, as Nelson stresses, the ordinary understanding of 
Historie “presuppose the ‘vulgar concept of time’ analyzed in Being and 
Time as underlying everyday and philosophical understandings of time 
— whether linear or cyclical. These understandings block access to the 
history of being, obscuring rather than clarifying the history that we 
ourselves are” (op.cit., ibid.)
We find in this distinction the opening of an access to ontologi-
cal time, to a historical time “which we ourselves are,” an expression 
used frequently by heidegger, and also echoed in the famous question 
from the 1924 lecture, “The Concept of time”: “am i time?,” “am i my 
time”? (Supplements, 213). at issue in this distinction is the radicalizing 
of historical time, from an external object of inquiry (Historie, from the 
Greek historein, to enquire), to history as an event (Geschichte, from the 
verb geschehen, to happen), indeed as “the happening that we ourselves 
are” (Bh, 271). This happening is to be distinguished from a natural 
happening, or Vorgang (from vorgehen, as in the processes or vorgänge 
of nature). it is striking in this respect that in a later critique of histori-
18 in Introduction to Metaphysics, heidegger returned to this question and reasserted that “the 
science of history does not at all determine, as science, the originary relation to history; instead, 
it always already presupposes such a relation.” heidegger, M. (2000), Introduction to Metaphysics 
(translated by Gregory Fried and richard Polt). New haven, Ct: yale university Press, p. 46.
19 Nelson, e. “history, event, and alterity in heidegger and levinas,” op.cit.
103
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
cal science, heidegger makes the point that such a discipline takes as its 
model natural sciences and its objectifications.20
This expression, the history “that we ourselves are” (or “We our-
selves are history”), “we are history” (Wir sind Geschichte) is borrowed 
from Count yorck, and is to be found used as a leitmotiv in the Kassel 
lectures, which engage Dilthey’s philosophy of history as they pursue a 
phenomenological inquiry into the senses of life and the “being of the 
human being.” heidegger in these Kassel lectures begins by lamenting 
the fact that in post-Kantian philosophy, the question of the sense of 
historical being “died out,” due to the predominance of the mathemati-
cal natural sciences, and the reduction of philosophy to epistemology. 
The question concerning the being of history became all the more press-
ing, and heidegger credits Dilthey for having revived such an inquiry, 
although Dilthey was not able to sufficiently distinguish his approach 
from the epistemological, and as a consequence could not raise the ques-
tion of the being of history phenomenologically. as heidegger puts it: 
“it is a matter of elaborating the being of the historical, i.e., historicity 
and not the historical, being and not beings, reality and not the real. it 
is therefore not a question of empirical research in history. even a uni-
versal history still would not deal with historicity. Dilthey made his way 
to the reality that is properly historical and has the sense of being histori-
cal, namely, human Dasein. Dilthey succeeded in bringing this reality 
to givenness, defining it as living, free, and historical. But he did not 
raise the question of historicity itself, the question of the sense of being, 
the question of the being of beings. it is only with the development of 
phenomenology that we are in a position to raise this question overtly” 
(Bh, 255). a few pages later, heidegger emphasizes that “Dilthey never 
raised the question of the reality of life itself,” never “had an answer to 
the question of what it means to be historical” (Bh, 258).
in order to gain access to the being of the historical, it became neces-
sary to break with the theoretical or epistemological perspectives, and 
20 heidegger, M. (2002) “The age of the World Picture,” in: Off the Beaten Track (ed. and 
translated by Julian young and Kenneth haynes). Ny: Cambridge university Press, p. 62. let us 
recall here the distinction made by heidegger in the 1934 course among three types of change: 
one speaks of “flow” [Ablauf] for the earth, of “process” [Vorgang] for life, and of “happening” 
[Geschehen] for human beings. Ga 38, tr., p. 75.
104
P o l i G r a F i
distinguish more fully between historical science and history as such. 
This is what heidegger attempts in the following way. he first recalls the 
phenomenological scope of his analyses, clarifying that the “fundamen-
tal attitude of phenomenological research is defined by a principle which 
at first seems self-evident: to the matters themselves” (Bh, 256). The is-
sue is to reveal the phenomenon of history. This is all the more necessary 
since the ontological structure of historicity is concealed by history as 
a science.21 in terms of the question of history, it becomes a matter “of 
bringing historical reality itself to givenness so that the sense of its being 
can be read off from it” (Bh, 256). This phenomenological task is only 
misleadingly self-evident, for the matters themselves are covered over 
by the unphenomenological representations concerning historical time, 
the epistemological perspective and the reductive outlook on natural 
time. “By way of preparation,” heidegger then proceeds to distinguish 
Historie from Geschichte, noting that those terms, although from an en-
tirely different origin, can “yet both get used interchangeably”. history 
as Geschichte designates “a happening that we ourselves are,” whereas 
historical science, from its etymological source, is an “ascertaining and 
reporting [of ] what has happened,” and means “a knowledge of a hap-
pening” (Bh, 271). The being of the historical is thus the happening 
that we ourselves are (“history happens to me; i am this happening”22), 
while historical science is the thematic investigation of such happen-
ing. to this extent, it is not simply a matter of distinguishing those two 
terms, but of showing how one is grounded in the other, Historie as we 
saw presupposing Geschichte.23 This ontological foundation is further 
developed in Being and Time, where heidegger proposes to reveal “the 
ontological genesis of historiography as a science in terms of the histo-
21 as Jean Greisch explains, “what is thus forgotten or concealed (passé sous silence) is the phe-
nomenon of historicality which is such that, before the invention of a historical science, which 
only came to be at then end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, human ex-
istence was already constituted in a ‘historical’ manner in its ontological structure”. Greisch, J. 
(1994), Ontologie et Temporalité. Paris: PuF, p. 357, translation mine.
22 We find a similar expression in The Phenomenology of Religious Life, p.124, where we read: 
“history hits us (Die Geschichte trifft uns), and we are history itself ”
23 as Peter Warnek explains in his essay, “The history of Being,” “history, or more precisely 
‘historiology’ (Historie) as a domain of research, operates within a pre-given sense of being, a 
determination of what it is that it investigates”. in: Heidegger. Key Concepts, p. 162.
105
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
ricity of Da-sein.”24 This will involve, as we will see, a subordination of 
nature to historical time.
iii. The subordination of Nature to historical time
in Being and Time, heidegger notes once again the ambiguity of the 
term “history,” which designates both “‘historical reality’ as well as the 
possibility of a science of it” (sZ, 378). however, heidegger’s focus is 
neither the science of history nor even history as an object of such sci-
ence. instead, heidegger is interested in thinking “this being itself which 
has not necessarily been objectified,” namely, the historical itself. hei-
degger explains in paragraph 72 that the problem of history cannot be 
raised from historical science or historiography, because in such an ap-
proach, history is taken as an object of science. The basic phenomenon 
of history is “prior to the possibility of making something thematic by 
historiography and underlies it,” so that the question of the relation be-
tween the two becomes the following: “how history [Geschichte] can be-
come a possible object for historiography [Historie], can be gathered only 
from the kind of being of what is historical [Geschichtlichen], from his-
toricity and its rootedness in temporality” (sZ, 375). heidegger makes 
this point in three different ways in this section 72: first, by defining 
historiography as an existentiell possibility of Dasein (“from the kind 
of being of this being that exists historically, there arises the existentiell 
possibility of an explicit disclosure and grasp of history”), which betrays 
that it presupposes an existential basis that needs to be fleshed out. sec-
ond, by characterizing historical science as the “thematizing” (proper to 
any science) of a pre-given domain, as Historie is “primarily constituted 
by thematizing” (sZ, 392). Third, by characterizing this discussion in 
terms of ontological foundation (“the existential interpretation of histo-
riography as a science aims solely at a demonstration of its ontological 
provenance from the historicity of Da-sein”, sZ, 376).
24 heidegger, M. (1953), Sein und Zeit. tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, p. 392. hereafter 
cited as sZ following the German pagination; all citations of the work are from heidegger, M. 
(1996), Being and Time (translated by Joan stambaugh). albany: suNy Press.
106
P o l i G r a F i
This ontological foundation is of course the task of paragraph 76 
of Being and Time, which is concerned with showing the “existential 
origin of historiography from the historicity of Dasein” and proposes 
to “inquire into the ontological possibility of the origin of the sciences 
[and here of historical science] from the constitution of being of Da-
sein” (sZ, 392), an existential derivation already posited in paragraph 
3 of Being and Time. The presuppositions of the historicity of Dasein 
by historiography are several: one can for instance note from the outset 
that the very possibility of disclosing the past through historiography 
presupposes that “the ‘past’ has always already been disclosed in general” 
(sZ, 393). although this may seem obvious, heidegger stresses that the 
fact that “something like this [the fact that the past must be open to a 
return to it] and how it is possible is by no means obvious” (sZ, 392). 
Things such as “antiquities” can become historiographical objects only 
because they are already in themselves historical. as heidegger explains, 
the historical character of antiquities is “grounded in the ‘past’ of Da-
sein to whose world that past belongs” (sZ, 380). This means that the 
historiographical disclosure (heidegger uses the term Erschliessung) of 
history “is in itself rooted in the historicity of Da-sein in accordance with 
its ontological structure, whether it is factically carried out or not” (sZ, 
392). This is why historiography should not be given a positivist inter-
pretation, as its objects are not “the facts” in their positivity, but rather 
the having-been of historical Dasein.
This is why, one notes in passing, history does not designate “the 
past” (Vergangenheit) in the sense of what has gone by, the bygone, das 
Vergangene, but rather the world of Dasein has having-been, das Gew-
esene, which ultimately for heidegger is yet to come, and thus futural. 
“We see that beenness [Gewesenheit], insofar as it reaches over us and 
comes toward [zukommt] us, has future [Zukunft]” (Ga 38, tr. 98). For 
heidegger, history as happening “is determined from the future,”25 or 
as he would also state in the “letter on humanism”: the “history of be-
ing is never past, but stands ever before” (BW, 194). indeed, if the pos-
sible itself is the very meaning of Dasein’s existence, should not one see 
“behind” those alleged facts the presence of the possible itself? “Does 
25 heidegger, M., Introduction to Metaphysics, p.47.
107
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
historiography thus have what is possible as its theme? Does not its whole 
‘meaning’ lie in ‘facts,’ in what has factually been?” (sZ, 394). in this 
sense, as heidegger would state in that 1934 course, “we mean by ‘histo-
ry’ not the past, but the future”: “to enter into history means, therefore, 
not simply that something that is bygone, merely because it is bygone, is 
classed with the past. yes, it is, generally speaking, questionable whether 
the entering into history always means to be sent to the past, as it were… 
we mean by ‘history’ not the past, but the future” (Ga 38, tr. 71). De-
cades later, in the Zollikon seminars, heidegger would return to this 
question, maintaining the distinction between an ontic past and an on-
tological “having been,” and claiming that the confrontation with such 
having-been – no mere “retaining” — engages the future: “The present 
confronts what has been in relation to what is coming [das Künftige]”.26 
For Dasein to be “factually” does not point to “facts” but to a world-
history. This is why remains, monuments, records, are all possible ma-
terial for historical research and “can become historiographical material 
only because they have a world-historical character” (sZ, 394); that is to 
say that the acquisition, sifting and securing of material “does not first 
bring about a return to the ‘past,’ but rather already presupposes histori-
cal being toward the Da-sein that has-been-there” (sZ, 394). The object 
of historical science is not “the facts”, but historical Dasein.27 This in turn 
presupposes the historicity of the historian’s existence, as one can also 
note further that a thematization of the past (historiography) presup-
poses the historicity of Dasein. This does not indicate a subjectivism in 
heidegger’s analysis, but rather the fact that historiography is a possibil-
ity of existence: as heidegger puts it, the central theme of historiography 
“is always a possibility of existence that has-been-there,” and thus rests 
upon the historicity of Dasein’s existence.28 in short, the fundamental 
concepts of historiographical sciences – the epistemological problematic 
26 heidegger, M. (2001), The Zollikon Seminars. evanston, il: Northwestern university Press, 
p. 220
27 This is why, as heidegger states, “what is philosophically primary is neither a theory of 
the concept-formation of historiology nor the theory of historiological knowledge, nor yet the 
theory of history as the object of historiology; what is primary is rather the interpretation of 
authentically historical entities as regards their historicity”. sZ, 10.
28 heidegger at that point refers to Nietzsche’s essay on the “advantages and disadvantages of 
historiography for life,” and the three senses of historiography that Nietzsche retains – the mon-
108
P o l i G r a F i
of the social sciences – ultimately “are concepts of existence” (sZ, 397). 
as we see, the epistemological problematic of historiography (Histo-
rie) rests upon and presupposes the ontological constitution of history 
(Geschichte). The question of the relation between history and nature is 
thus displaced from the epistemological horizon of the 1915 essay, to the 
ontological level.
Most significantly for our concern, this ontological foundation of 
Historie in Geschichte has radical consequences for an understanding 
of the relation between history and nature as it leads to a grounding of 
nature in historical time. indeed, as heidegger explicitly states, “even 
nature is historical” (sZ, 388). Not historical in the sense of “natural his-
tory,” for, as he would say in the 1934 course, it is senseless and vacuous 
to speak of natural history. Nature, heidegger insists, has no history, and 
“only the human being has history” (Ga 38, tr. 67). Nonetheless, na-
ture is in a certain sense historical when it appears as within the world, 
as an intraworldy object: “nature is historical as a countryside, as areas 
that have been inhabited or exploited, as battlefields and cultic sites.” 
(sZ, 388–389)29. The ontological foundation of historical science in his-
toricity thus also implies the subordination of nature to history, via the 
reference to the world, or, to be more precise, the so-called “secondarily 
historical,” “World history” or the “world-historical” (das Weltgeschich-
tliche). as heidegger explains, Dasein is the “primarily historical,” and 
the “secondarily historical” is “what is encountered within the world, 
not only useful things at hand in the broadest sense, but also nature 
in the surrounding world as the ‘historical ground’” (sZ, 381). Nature 
gives itself against the background of the world, which itself is unfold-
ing temporally.”With the factical disclosedness [Erschlossenheit] of Das-
ein’s world, nature has been uncovered [entdeckt] for Dasein” (sZ, 412). 
Whereas Dasein is “disclosed,” nature is “uncovered,” marking here the 
ontological distinction between the two.
umental, the antiquarian, and the critical – to the historicity of Da-sein (“The threefold character 
of historiography is prefigured in the historicity of Da-sein.” sZ, 396).
29 one also finds in (1997), Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 
Bloomington, iN: indiana university Press, p. 14, the same characterization of nature as an in-
traworldly being.
109
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
Dasein’s concern, which is always thrown, surrendered to night and 
day (for heidegger nature thus also designates thrownness, and in fact 
will be described a few years later, as earth, as that in which historical 
Dasein is already thrown, schon geworfen30), is connected to the environ-
ment it is involved with, such as “the rising of the sun” (sZ, 412). What 
is significant in this description is that nature, i.e., the sun, gives itself 
in terms of and on the basis of concernful time: “Then, when the sun 
rises, it is time for so and so” (sZ, 412). Now, the time of concern, or the 
counting of time, is what aristotle understood time to be, the counting 
of natural movement: the counting of time becomes “the counting of 
the now in relation to the now that is no longer and the now that is not 
yet. time is thus that which is numbered in movement encountered in 
the horizon of the earlier and later, which is precisely the aristotelian 
definition of time in Book iV of The Physics” (Françoise Dastur, hCt, 
49).
What is significant here is that this conception of time as number 
of movement takes place within “the natural understanding of Being as 
Vorhandenheit” (hCt, 49). There is thus a profound affinity between 
the time of concern and the sphere of the natural. This is why it should 
not come as a surprise if heidegger then defines “nature” as a kind of 
ready-to-hand, that is, an intra-worldly entity that is encountered with-
in a world that has been disclosed under the horizon of temporality. 
“Concern makes use of the ‘handiness’ of the sun, which sheds forth 
light and warmth” (sZ, 412, modified). The sun is used in terms of the 
time-reckoning of Dasein: “The sun dates the time interpreted in con-
cern” (sZ, 412, modified), such “natural clock” constituting the origin, 
heidegger tells us, of “artificial clocks” as such (as these artificial clocks 
must be “adjusted” to the natural clock). The natural concept of time is 
hence a derivative mode of temporality, a mode of Dasein’s concern with 
entities within-the-world. Natural time is derivative, vulgar time. time 
as measured refers to Dasein’s time-reckoning, also a function of con-
cern. “The disclosedness of natural clock belongs to the Dasein which 
exists as thrown and falling” (sZ, 415). This reduction of natural time is 
30 heidegger, M. (1993), “The origin of the Work of art,” in: Basic Writings, rev. and exp. edi-
tion (ed. David Farrell Krell). san Francisco: harpersanFrancisco, p. 200.
110
P o l i G r a F i
further emphasized in the text, for not only does heidegger refer it to 
public fallen time, but he then also assigns it to so-called “primitive Da-
sein,” as opposed to so-called “advanced Dasein”! “Comparison shows 
that for the ‘advanced’ Dasein the day and the presence of sunlight no 
longer have such a special function as they have for the ‘primitive’ Da-
sein on which our analysis of natural time-reckoning has been based” (sZ, 
415, emphasis mine). Natural time is in any case fallen temporality, and 
represents the leveling down of original temporality (Nivellierung der 
ursprunglischen Zeit). one knows how, in section 82, heidegger is care-
ful to note that time has traditionally been interpreted, from aristotle 
to hegel, within a philosophy of nature, which denotes the inauthentic 
approach to the concept of time, how “since aristotle, time has been 
defined as physical time, the time of the objective world.”31 time is ap-
proached from within an ontology of the present-at-hand, to which na-
ture belongs. as such, it is subject to a phenomenological destruction.
Nature thus gives itself within the world (the secondarily historical), 
and is thus grounded on Dasein’s historicity, i.e., the primarily historical! 
Therein lies the reduction of nature, which in fact could lead, in hei-
degger’s most extreme formulations, to an expulsion or rejection of na-
ture outside of the realm of history and historical Dasein. For instance, 
in On the Essence of Truth, heidegger states: “only the ek-sistent human 
being is historical. ‘Nature’ has no history.”32 one finds a similar claim 
in the 1934 summer semester course, where heidegger states that “nature 
is without history” (Ga 38, tr. p.113). Certainly, nature can be in-time, as 
we saw, but it is not historical, it is outside history. as heidegger states, 
one never speaks of a past or futural nature! (Ga 38, tr, p. 85). heidegger 
insists at length on this point, reiterating that, “in nature there is nei-
ther historicity nor unhistoricity, but it is without history [geschichtlos], 
not dependent on the happening [Geschehen]. Nature is without history 
because it is atemporal [Zeitlos]” (Ga 38, tr.113). Certainly, he concedes, 
“natural processes are measurable and ascertainable by time. Nature, 
insofar as it is measurable by time, is in a certain manner in time”. But 
one needs to distinguish between “being-in-time” [in-der-Zeit-Sein] and 
31 Dastur, F., Heidegger and the Question of Time, p. 7.
32 heidegger, M., “on the essence of truth,” in: Pathmarks (translated by John sallis), p. 146.
111
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
“being-temporal” [Zeitlich-Sein], “which befits only the human being” 
(Ga 38, tr., p. 113). Nature is within-timely, the human being – and, as 
we saw, only the human being – is temporal.33
iV. The earth as Ground of history
and yet, this early reduction of nature, subordinated to history, if 
not rejected in the nonhistorical, will lead to a paradoxical reversal of 
heidegger’s hierarchy between nature and history, as nature will be said 
a few years after Being and Time, as earth, to be the ground [Grund] of 
the world, and thus of history if it is the case that “entrance into world 
by beings is primal history pure and simple”.34 in “The origin of the 
Work of art,” heidegger would speak of the earth as the ground and na-
tive soil (heimatliche Grund) of the world and of historical Dasein, “that 
on which and in which man bases his dwelling. We call this ground the 
earth” (BW, 168, my emphasis). The work of art reveals that the world 
rests upon the earth, which itself “emerges as native ground” (BW, 168). 
in this way, “upon the earth and in it, historical man grounds his dwell-
ing in the world” (BW, 172). This paradoxical reversal might be the in-
dication of a concealed aporia, the very aporia structuring heidegger’s 
thought of history as contrasted and opposed to the natural. it is as if all 
these repeated attempts by heidegger to subordinate nature to history 
might ultimately be aimed at overcoming or suppressing the aporia of an 
irreducible nature that could not be derived from historical time. such 
an aporia would also threaten the ontological hierarchies that heidegger 
sets up in Being and Time. at this point, as one commentator remarked, 
“one might try to resist heidegger’s subordination of natural, linear time 
to the temporality of Dasein”.35 in fact, we note such resistance in hei-
degger‘s texts themselves.
33 Certainly, heidegger concedes, “the occurrences on the earth, in plants or animals are cer-
tainly flows and processes in the framework of time, but stones, animals, plants are themselves not 
temporal in the original sense as we ourselves”. Ga 38, tr. 110. only the human being is histori-
cal, and the natural occurrences within the human being (“the changing of the gastric juices, of 
the blood circulation, the graying of the hair”, Ga 38, tr. 72) do not constitute history.
34 heidegger, M. (1984), The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (translated by M. heim). 
Bloomington, in: indiana university Press, p. 209.
35 Polt, r., “Being and time,” in Martin Heidegger. Key Concepts, p. 74.
112
P o l i G r a F i
apart from those enigmatic passages in The Basic Problems of Phe-
nomenology where heidegger states that “intraworldliness does not be-
long to nature’s being,” a being “which on its own part already always 
is,” and which “is, even if we do not uncover it, without our encounter-
ing it within our world,”36 the difficulty of deriving nature from history 
already appeared in the discussion in Being and Time of the relation be-
tween original temporality and within-time-ness, history and historiog-
raphy (and time-reckoning). as we saw, heidegger claimed that Dasein 
exists historically before historiography, that what is world-historical is 
always already there “in the occurrence of existing being-in-the-world 
even “without being grasped historiographically” (sZ, 389). however, what 
would it mean for this discussion if historical science was not simply an 
existentiell possibility but a constitutive feature of the phenomenon of 
history, if historiography was not simply derived from the ontological 
basis of history? heidegger himself asks that question, when clarifying 
in the 1934 summer semester course the relation between “lore of his-
tory” (Geschichtskunde) and Geschichte: “History [Geschichte] is an event 
[Ereignis], insofar as it happens [geschieht] a happening [Geschehen] is 
historiographical, insofar as it stands in some lore, is explored [erkun-
det] and manifested [bekundet]. is that which is historiographical only 
a supplement to the historical? or is history only where there is histo-
riography, so that the statement ‘No history without historiography’ 
comes about?” (Ga 38, tr. 74). heidegger is constrained to admit that 
long before the invention of historical science, Dasein, as a historical 
being, was using calendars and clocks that measure time and provide a 
structure to social time. While insisting on the ontological priority of 
historicity over historiography, insisting as well that world-time is de-
rived from Dasein’s temporality, and that the time of concern, clock-
time, is based on such original historicity (Dasein’s temporality is said 
to pre-exist all instruments that may measure it), heidegger also has to 
concede that the intra-temporality of the time of concern – and thus 
natural time – is “equiprimordial” with historicality: “But since time as 
within-time-ness also ‘stems’ from the temporality of Da-sein, historic-
36 heidegger, M. (1982), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (translated by albert hof-
stadter). Bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university Press, p. 169.
113
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
ity and within-time-ness turn out to be equiprimordial” (sZ, 377).37 
Now, nature is clearly at the center of this problem, since for heidegger 
nature is included within-time-ness: “in the same way, the processes of 
nature, whether living or lifeless, are encountered ‘in time’” (sZ, 377). 
heidegger’s attempt to posit an ontological derivation of nature from 
history aporetically runs into the claim of an equiprimordiality between 
the two!
it becomes impossible to maintain – and this is indeed the very apo-
ria that this essay is concerned with – the ontological hierarchy between 
history and nature, and to secure the foundation of nature, as intra-
worldly, in history. This aporia, which threatens heidegger’s very onto-
logical analysis, including the paramount distinction between original 
and vulgar time, ontological and ontic time, opens this unavoidable 
question: if original temporality cannot unfold without the intra-world-
ly, natural time, what prevents us from radicalizing this proposition (and 
our understanding of the natural) and assert that in this case it may be 
nature that turns out to be that from which the historical itself emerges? 
Thus radicalized, would nature not represent an “archi-ontical” origin of 
historical time, an original sense of nature that heidegger would name, 
a few years later, earth? Further, doesn’t the dimension of thrownness, 
itself rethought from the truth of being itself, raise anew the question 
of the origin of history, if it is the case, as we saw above, that the earth 
is described in “The origin of the Work of art” as that from which his-
torical Dasein is thrown?
The question remains of how to conceive of such natural being, how 
to conceive of this non-derivation of nature from history: does it point 
to a metaphysical ground outside of the disclosedness of Dasein? Does 
it point to a non-historical ground of human existence, as Michel haar 
argues in his two volumes on the earth and the human?38 in these two 
37 This is why, as he concedes in the 1934 course, “assuming that lore [Kunde] belongs to the 
inner constitution of the historical happening, then we must make clear from the happening, to 
what extent something like lore can belong to this kind of being [Seins]. Ga 38, tr, p. 81.
38 haar, M. (1993), The Song of the Earth (translated by reginald lilly). Bloomington, in: indi-
ana university Press. hereafter cited as se, followed by page number. haar, M. (1993), Heidegger 
and the Essence of Man (translated by William McNeill). albany, Ny: suNy Press. hereafter 
cited as heM, followed by page number.
114
P o l i G r a F i
books, Michel haar seeks to claim that there is a non-historicality or 
even extra-historicality of humans as earthy beings. he is constrained at 
first to recognize that for heidegger the human being is essentially his-
torical and that “heidegger maintains that man is entirely and exclusive-
ly historial” (heM, 176).39 however, this is to immediately challenge 
this view, by suggesting that beneath history there remains a “preexisting 
situation,” leaving the trace of “prehistorial man’” (heM, 177). in fact, 
Michel haar understands such element as a non-historical permanence, 
as “every transformation requires something that persists” (heM, 177). 
For instance, he argues, although each epoch has its own fundamental 
mood, “the fact of finding oneself disposed and experiencing corporeal 
being-in-the-world according to constantly changing moods belongs to 
every human being in every epoch” (heM, 181, my emphasis). haar also 
appeals to a “transhistoriality” of Western man, as we are capable today 
of accessing the Greek epoch of astonishment or wonder. it should be 
noted that haar supports his argument by appealing to the “nonhisto-
ricity” of Ereignis (se, p.3). however the term used by heidegger in the 
passage cited by haar is ungeschichtlich, a term that is not synonymous 
with atemporal or outside history altogether, but is a mode of historic-
ity, as heidegger explained in Logic as the Question on the Essence of Lan-
guage (Ga 38, tr. 113).
haar believes that this extrahistorical or permanent element is rep-
resented in heidegger’s thought by the notion of earth. For, as he puts 
it, “Generally speaking, the nonhistorial is always linked to the earth” 
(heM, 179). earth, he continues, constitutes “the limit of history” 
(ibid). Dwelling, in particular, “instantiates an essential mode of the 
nonhistorial” for in it “something immemorial persists: the shelter” 
(heM, 178). sheltering establishes an intimacy around a hearth, a no-
tion that once again is said to point towards the nonhistorial: “is it not 
the immemorial character of the hearth that founds dwelling?” (heM, 
178). Dwelling around the hearth would constitute heidegger’s refer-
ence to the non-historical: “to the degree that heidegger writes that 
39 indeed, heidegger wrote in his “letter on humanism” that the “thinking that thinks into 
the truth of bring is, as thinking, historical” (BW, 238), and also: “the history of being is being 
itself ”! heidegger, M. (1973), The End of Philosophy (translated by J. stambaugh). New york: 
harper & row, p. 82.
115
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
‘being is the hearth’, he himself acknowledges the nonhistorical aspect 
of being” (ibid), or the archaic. This interpretation is pursued in The 
Song of the Earth, where haar claims that being is not reducible to its 
history, and that history conceals a reserve and an opacity “which can 
never be exhibited” (se, 2), which never sees the light of day. Without 
constituting a substantial metaphysical ground, the earth, according to 
haar, “possesses… its own essence which, in relation to being, can be 
thought at least negatively as the dimension that in itself rebels against 
phenomenality, namely as the pre-historical or nonhistorical dimension” 
(se, 100, my emphasis). arguing against the ontological derivation of 
nature in Being and Time, haar insists that “the essence and genuine 
origin of this nature cannot, by definition, be situated ‘in the world’” 
(se, 10) and he even go so far as referring nature to the tradition of the 
thing in itself! “Just as the Kantian phenomenon leaves the residue of the 
thing in itself, the phenomenological transparency of the world leaves a 
residue: the being of nature” (se, 10).
We are nonetheless allowed to ask: is there such a permanent non or 
extra-historical substrate in heidegger’s thought, a “deep nonhistoriality 
of Dasein” which haar does not hesitate to describe as the “quasi-eter-
nity of embodied being-in-the-world”? (heM, 181). it is very doubtful. 
heidegger himself explains that nature, although atemporal and outside 
history, nonetheless can in a certain sense “enter into history.” how? in 
the sense that nature, for instance, as a landscape, “is site and abode of 
an historical process” (Ga 38, tr, p. 113). The earth, heidegger explains, 
can neither enter into history, nor step out of it, because the earth “has 
nothing to do with history.” (Ga 38, tr. 71). and yet, “the southern Bal-
kan peninsula entered into history more than two thousand years ago. 
a mountain chain, a river can become [a] site for world-historical deci-
sive battles. We speak of ‘historical soil,’ [we] say that an entire region 
is, as it were, laden with history” (Ga 38, tr. 72). The earth is the soil 
[Der Erdboden] of history, a soil which then “also enters into history” 
(ibid). No substantial separation between earth and history (the world is 
earthy, the earth is worldly), but a singular intertwining, indeed a strife 
(Streit). as heidegger explains in “on the essence of truth,” “Beings as 
116
P o l i G r a F i
a whole reveal themselves as φύσις, ‘nature,’” and history “begins only 
when beings themselves are expressly drawn up into their unconceale-
ment and conserved in it”.40 in that sense, the earth cannot constitute 
a separate, substantial nonhistorical ground. This is what heidegger 
shows in “The origin of the Work of art”. The earth represents a self-se-
cluding element and world the open region, and yet they are essentially 
intertwined: the earth cannot subsist on its own without the openness 
of the world and the world cannot float away from earth; the world is 
grounded on the earth, the earth juts into the open region. heidegger 
explains that “World and earth are essentially different from one another 
and yet are never separated. The world grounds itself on the earth, and 
earth juts through world” (BW, 174).41
earth and world belong together as the co-belonging – and origi-
nal strife, Urstreit – of clearing and concealing. That relation is one of 
tension and resistance. The world, resting on the earth, attempts to 
overcome it; the earth, as sheltering and concealment, draws the world 
toward it. in the creation of the world, the strife “must be set back 
into the earth,” and the earth itself “must be set firth and put to use as 
self-secluding” (BW, 189). such strife is not destructive but constitutive 
of both earth and world, for in “essential strife, rather, the opponents 
raise each other into their self-assertion of their essential natures” (BW, 
174). The world “lets the earth be earth”. in the end, history itself is re-
thought as the strife between earth and world, as the between of earth 
and world, as heidegger makes clear in The Contributions to Philosophy 
when he describes history [Geschichte] as “the strifing of the strife [Be-
streitung des Streites] of earth and world.”42 history happens in, and as, 
this original strife of earth and world. The earth thus cannot constitute, 
40 heidegger, M., “on the essence of truth,” in: Pathmarks, p. 145.
41 in the highly evocative words of David Kleinberg-levin, “Nature is always historical, never 
visible as such, never encountered outside the violent constructs of our historically situated con-
sciousness; conversely, however, the world that we have built, forging a historical existence in 
irreconcilable struggle against Nature’s forces of destruction, can never escape its violent condi-
tions and mortifying alembications.” David Kleinberg-levin, Brochure for the exhibition of 
the Photographic art of olivier Mériel, Candace Dwan Gallery, september, 2008.
42 heidegger, M. (1999), Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) (translated by Parvis 
emad and Kenneth Maly). Bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university Press, p. 66.
117
h e i D e G G e r  a N D  t h e  a P o r i a  o F  h i s t o r y
as Michel haar suggests, a prior, prehistorical, “quasi-eternal,” meta-
physical element.
For heidegger, after the turn, history is no longer approached as Da-
sein’s historicity but as the history of being itself (Geschichte des Seins), 
as the between of world and earth. history is thought from Geschick, 
the sending (schicken) of being in its epoquality, an epochē which is a 
withdrawal. as we saw, through a genuine Kehre in thinking, heidegger 
claims in The Origin of the Work of Art that earth (now no longer under-
stood as nature giving itself within the world but as counterpart to the 
world), constitutes the ground of history, as “that which bears all” (BW, 
188). What was constantly referred back to history as to its ontological 
ground now becomes the ground of the historical. Neither historical 
nor unhistorical, the earth is without history in the sense of being archi-
historical, pre-historical, the ground of history, the “obscure ground of 
our abode” (haar, se, 57). But what kind of ground? The non-historical 
ground of history, as Michel haar suggests? or as a ground that grounds 
insofar as it withdraws? haar distinguishes four senses of “earth” in “The 
origin of the Work of art,” the fourth one being that of “ground”, or 
heimatlicher Grund. haar notes that the choice of this term shows hei-
degger’s continuity with metaphysics (the term is “the same as the meta-
physical term designating the foundation and reason for being”, se, 61), 
although he also notes that for heidegger Grund means rootedness in 
the sense of a ground ‘containing a reserve, the nourishing soil” (ibid). 
in fact, the “native” (heimatlich) ground is not tantamount to a natural 
basis, but points to the phenomena of home and homelessness (Heimat, 
Heim, Heimlich, heimatlish, heimish, and also Unheimlichkeit, heimatlo-
sigkeit, Unheimischkeit), and thus of a historical dwelling, thereby engag-
ing a human and historical existence. The earth can thus be said “prehis-
torical” only in the sense that it is the site of history, but in no way does 
it constitute a metaphysical separate foundation “before” history. haar 
may thus be conflating the reserve of history, its proper withdrawal, with 
a non-historical ground while absolutizing it. For what does heidegger 
mean by the earth as ground?
The earth grounds insofar as it withdraws. The earth in “The origin 
of the Work of art” essentially withdraws. as andrew Mitchell shows, 
in “The origin of the Work of art,” the earth “supports and bears pre-
118
P o l i G r a F i
cisely by withdrawing”.43 The earth as a withdrawal of the ground, as a 
remaining-away [Weg-bleiben] of the ground, as Ab-grund, a “groundless 
ground.” it is the soil for historical eventfulness to happen: the earth is 
the ground of history insofar as it withdraws in its self-seclusion. his-
tory happens from a withdrawal, as heidegger would claim with respect 
to the sendings of the epochs of being. history does not rest upon the 
earth as on some substrate, but occurs from the withdrawal proper to the 
“sendings” of Ereignis. The aporia of history is in the end the presence of 
such withdrawal as possibility and origin of historical happening. The 
tension between nature and history turned out to designate the strife of 
earth and world, as the very possibility of a history always marked by a 
certain opacity and withdrawal.
43 Mitchell, a., “The Fourfold,” in: Martin heidegger. Key Concepts, p. 212.