On the notion of insistence and the existential meaning of the possibility of non-technical thinking.

Abstract

 In the introduction to the lecture What Does it Mean to Think? (GA 07), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) poses a provocative question that challenges the current understanding of what it means to think. He states: “what most deserves careful thought is shown by the fact that we do not yet think” (GA 07, p. 130). Besides questioning the common understanding of what it means to think and, consequently, what should be thought about given the fact that we do not yet think, this statement presents us with a fundamental problem, the unfolding of which will guide this research: if we do not yet think, then according to what possibility do we not think? To what form of thought is Heidegger referring? Following this line of thought, the aim of this work is to present the provisional thesis that the astonishment at the assertion that we do not yet think is justified because, unlike common understanding, what Heidegger calls the "meaning of thinking" is intimately linked to a mode of co-responding (Entsprechen), that is, to a mode of "possibility," understood as allowing oneself to be permitted by something, according to its own mode of being, to come to meet us in its essence. To support this work, as well as its argumentative path, the following works will be used essentially: GA 02 Sein und Zeit; GA 27 Einleitung in Die Philosophie; GA 08 Was Heißt Denken e GA 09 Brief über den “Humanismus”.

Keywords: Insistence. Think. Possibility.