ABSTRACT
One does not need to be reminded that in the philosophy of Heidegger 'nothing' passes as a pseudonym of 'being' in order to recognize it as the focal point for first philosophy. As the thinking of being, philosophy begins from the manner in which being discloses itself and thus also conceals itself, and then moves toward a meditation on the manner in which that unconcealment that is also a concealment comes to pass. This makes an important difference: whereas previously he appears content to place fundamental ontology within the limits opened up by the self-interpretation of Dasein. For Heidegger, the very fact that the eschatology of being displays no such desire goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the thinker aims above all at ceding every initiative to being. From that perspective, the Christian desire for perfect happiness, or for salvation, remains contaminated by an insistence on the primacy of own initiative and by the deeper human interests that drive it.
