PHI 317: Existentialist Thought and Literature
Spring 2010
Glossary for Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism”
Word/Phrase
Meaning
actualitas (Lat.)
actuality
actus
act
(Lat.)
aletheuein
(Gr.)
unconcealing; Heidegger maintains that the Greek word for
truth (aletheia) is derived from a- (not) and lethe
(forgetting, oblivion, hiddenness) … so the Greek
conception of truth is that it is an uncovering of
what was hidden or concealed from view…truth is
therefore like a clearing in a forest: a place where
space is opened up and lit up, where things can be
clearly seen
animal rationale (Lat.)
rational animal
animalitas
animality
certitudo
(Lat.)
(Lat.)
certainty
condition et situation humaine (Fr.) human condition and situation
da
(Ger.)
there
daimon
(Gr.)
a god or spirit, but not as powerful a divinity as the
Olympian gods; they often function as
intermediaries between mortals and the higher gods
Deitas
des Heilens
(Lat.)
(Ger.)
divinity
of the hale; a good way of translating das Heile is “the
hale,” which (although a bit archaic) means not only
health and happiness, but more importantly
wholeness, well-being and salvation … and is
etymologically related (in both German and
English) to holiness … thus, “whole,” “holy,” and
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PHI 317: Existentialist Thought and Literature
Spring 2010
“healthy” are all related together, and “hale”
captures all those meanings
die Öffentlichkeit (Ger.)
openness, publicness
die Rede
speech, talk
ecstasis
(Ger.)
lit., “standing outside oneself” (ek=out, stasis=standing…
(Gr.)
thus when Heidegger talks about ek-sistence, this
literally means “putting/placing outside oneself,”
thus he is trying to show how existence is really eksistence, namely, being continuously placed outside
of itself, never being fixed)
ego cogito
(Lat.)
I think; the phrase attributed to Descartes, cogito ergo sum,
(“I think therefore I am,”) hinges on the individual
subject’s own private thinking
ek-
a prefix meaning “out”
(Gr.)
Entwurf
(Ger.)
projection; outline; sketch; lit., “what is thrown out there”
episteme
(Gr.)
any disciplined knowledge that can give a rigorous account
esse essentiae
(Lat.)
esse existentiae
essentia
(Lat.)
(Lat.)
being of the essence
being of the existence
essence
esti gar einai (Gr.)
for there is Being
ethos
custom, habit; a way of doing things; character
(Gr.)
existentia (Lat.)
existence
Geist
mind; spirit
(Ger.)
homo (Lat.)
human being, man
homo animalis
(Lat.)
animal man; man in his bestial/animal nature
homo barbarus
(Lat.)
barbaric man
homo humanus
(Lat.)
humane man
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PHI 317: Existentialist Thought and Literature
homo romanus (Lat.)
Roman man
humanitas
humanity
(Lat.)
humanus (Lat.)
human (adjective)
l’engagement dans l’action
l’engagement (Fr.)
L’Être et le plan
Spring 2010
(Fr.)
engagement in action
engagement
(Fr.)
Being and the situation
le plan
(Fr.)
the situation
logos
(Gr.)
reason; word; rationality; ratio; proportion; argument;
sentence; speech; a thing’s intelligibility; the sense
a thing makes which we discover through discourse;
the practice of that discourse itself
nemein
(Gr.)
to assign, to distribute, to manage
noein
(Gr.)
immediate, non-discursive knowing; reasoning, thinking
nomos
(Gr.)
law; convention; ordering
Offenbarmachen
(Ger.)
to make manifest, lit. to bring something out into the open
on (usually “to on”) (Gr.)
what is; being
ousia
substance, being; it traditionally meant wealth, the way that
(Gr.)
we say that a rich man is “a man of substance”
…and thus when Aristotle appropriates the word
ousia in his Metaphysics, to his readers it would
have overtones of “the richness of something’s
being”
par
(Fr.)
by
perceptio
(Lat.)
perception (whether physical sensation or mental insight)
physis
(Gr.)
nature; lit., “what emerges”
poiesis (Gr.)
possibilitas
any kind of making, esp. artistic creation
(Lat.)
possibility
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PHI 317: Existentialist Thought and Literature
potentia
pour
(Fr.)
praxis
ratio
(Lat.)
Spring 2010
potentiality
for
(Gr.)
activity, engaging things in daily affairs
(Lat.)
reason; proportion; order
renascentia romanitatis (Lat.)
resurgence (lit. “rebirth”) of what is Roman
res cogitans
thinking thing; Descartes’ term for himself as a mind
(Lat.)
romanitas (Lat.)
what is Roman, Roman-ness
salus aeterna (Lat.)
eternal salvation
Sein und Zeit
Being and Time, Heidegger’s magnum opus (publ. 1927)
Sinn
(Ger.)
(Ger.)
sense, meaning
studium humanitatis (Lat.)
the study of humanity
subiectum
subject
(Lat.)
techne
(Gr.)
skill, know-how, art (as in the art of debate, not fine art)
theoria
(Gr.)
contemplation, gazing; the sort of deep, non-utilitarian
pondering that is simply for the sake of
understanding what you are thinking about
thigein
(Gr.)
touching
transcendens (Lat.)
the transcendent
Verfallen
entrapment; lit., falling into something ruinous
virtus
(Ger.)
(Lat.)
virtue; strength, power
zoe
(Gr.)
life
zoon
(Gr.)
animal, life-form
zoon logon echon (Gr.)
animal possessing language; animal capable of reason (lit.,
the animal that has logos)
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