Abstract

Within the Seinsfrage, the question of being, the «who» question, or Werfrage, arises at once. Who is this «who»? In other words, who am I? Questioning the being, inevitably means questioning ourselves. Would it thus be possible to conceive of a subject without being? This question, paradoxical as it may appear, nevertheless has a historiographical legitimacy, if we consider that «phenomenological anthropology», as the young Heidegger conceived it, precedes in effect the formulation of the Seinsfrage. From his very first lectures in Fribourg, an access into subjectivity, apprehended as a «wordly ipseity », is thereby opened. While criticizing Natorp who unreservedly denied such a possibility, Heidegger yet ends up conceding the point almost entirely. This, at least, is our hypothesis: the «I» exists only at the cost of a tension between facticity and existence, a tension which, in the eyes of Natorp, leads to a confirmation that the «I», strictly speaking, cannot be – and this allows us therefore a glimpse into the legitimate possibility of a Werfrage without Seinsfrage.