Abstract

This dissertation deals with an interpretation of human freedom and resoluteness in Being and Time. The principal sources used are: Being and Time, Schellings Abhandlung Uberdas Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit , and Heidegger's essay "On the Essence of Truth." ;The study consists of: The Connection between truth and human freedom; Freedom as "letting beings be"; Freedom of good and evil and freedom toward death; Freedom toward authenticity. The discussion shows that Dasein, the Being that we all are, questions its own Being and discloses entities. This is true primordially; however, entities are true only secondarily. Freedom as "letting beings be" is considered as Dasein's engagement with the open region where beings stand. This "letting beings be" is simultaneously a concealment which takes precedence over all individual disclosures of beings. ;The nature of human freedom is further elucidated when it is considered as the capability of good and evil and when the existential ontological structure of death is analyzed. Death is reflected as the ultimate limit of Dasein and this reflection frees it for authentic existence. Authenticity becomes the meaning of Dasein's projection when human freedom unfolds as resoluteness--a returning to oneself radically. ;The dominant themes are those of disclosure and concealment. Human freedom unfolds as truth, "letting beings be," "ek-sistence," the capability of good and evil, resoluteness, and thinking. All these determinations refer to the same Dasein who is in truth disclosed but in untruth concealed. The interpretation shows, therefore, that although human freedom is not thematized explicitly in Being and Time it inevitably pervades the entire problematic