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HEIDEGGER ON THINKING ABOUT ETHOS 
AND MAN’S DWELLING 1

DIANA AURENQUE

Heidegger’s reflections on dwelling point us to a 
distinct ethos, a distinct way of  being in the world. 
As he puts it in “Letter on Humanism,” “Dwelling 
is the essence of  Being-in-the-world.”2 He thus 
explicitly relates the theme(s) of  ‘being-in’, themes 
raised in his early work, to that of  dwelling, and thus 
to thinking about ethos. As Heidegger frequently 
reminds us, ‘ethos’ (ἦθος) means “the dwelling of  
man, his sojourn in the midst of  all that is.”3 Already 
at this juncture, it is decisive to hold on to the idea 
that ethos, understood as sojourn, always relates us 
to an obligation of  sorts.4 This much transpires if  
we consider that being without sojourn indicates 
a state of  up-rootedness. And a person who is 
uprooted, without sojourn, is a person who ‘stands’ 
nowhere, and may well not understand much of  her 
own position either.

In the course of  the present paper I would like 
to show, accordingly, that Heidegger’s philosophy 
not only essentially comprises a reflection on 
ethos, on man’s sojourn in the world, but also that 
this reflection queries a genuine obligation man 
enters. That reflection thus queries whether there 
is an appropriate way of  residing or sojourning, 
and seeks to articulate an exemplary dwelling for 
man. And if  (as remains to be shown) there is 
furthermore an appropriate way of  human sojourn, 
of  ethos, then this trajectory will also contain, or 
afford, direction and guidance. It contains direction 
insofar as exemplary ethos denotes something we 
need to seek. It is not the case that humans, by 
their very nature, are endowed with an appropriate 
ethos. Ethos is rather, and actually, a becoming—is 

Ethos, 
understood as 

sojourn, always 
relates us to 

an obligation of 
sorts.

“

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something that exists historically, or that happens in existence. Dwelling, 
as Heidegger frequently puts it, “is something we have yet to learn.”5

 He 

emphasizes repeatedly how we always are already in the world—always 
already enjoy a sojourn in it of  sorts. And even so, we have to obtain a 
certain distance from the very form of  ethos we are most familiar with, an 
ethos we enjoy as a matter of  course and without much reflection. Such 
lack of  reflection accrues from the routines of  our everyday life and a 
certain obliviousness towards being itself. By gaining a distance from that 
familiar ethos we can make truly ‘our own’ both the world and ourselves. 
Without such distance, everyday phenomena comprising things, fellow 
human beings, and one’s own being lose the very value that makes them 
themselves. Heidegger beckons us towards a particular form of  sojourn 
not only in his late works, but also in his early Freiburger lectures or even in 
Being and Time. But his late works, this paper will show, deal with the matter 
and related themes more directly and explicitly than previous works.

DWELLING AND THE FOURFOLD
Concerns with spatiality exert a formative influence on Heidegger’s 

language in his late works, and constitute a cornerstone of  his reflections 
in those works. In his late thought, the problematization of  man’s 
sojourn receives explicit elaboration. Words like ‘dwelling’, ‘sojourn’, and 
‘ethos’ now feature in the foreground of  his (so-called) ‘ontic-historical’ 
reflections. While a certain reflection on ethos forms a recurrent theme 
across Heidegger’s thought, it is only in the context of  his ‘topology of  
being’6 that Heidegger begins to explicitly reflect on human sojourn and 
human dwelling.

Unlike in Being and Time, Heidegger’s late work is no longer concerned 
with the essential and inessential modes in which Dasein or a distinctly 
human way of  being takes on existence. Rather, his main concern is 
now with the essential and inessential ways in which humans design or 
conceive of  their being, their Sein. In this regard, dwelling is central. His 
essay “Building Dwelling Thinking” makes it rather clear that ‘dwelling’ 
is not merely conceived of  as one’s having or possessing an abode or 
roof  over one’s head: it rather designates “the main feature of  human 
existence (Dasein).”7 On the one hand, we are to think of  human existence 
as arising from dwelling; on the other, the nature of  (making) poetry is 
to be determined as (a form of) building.8 Dwelling, in its inner contours, 
has to be traced to and thematized as dwelling and (the making of) poetry. 
Just as dwelling can only be obtained through building, true building only 
happens to further dwelling. Heidegger here refers to an etymological 
relation between ‘I am’ (ich bin) and ‘building’ (Bauen).9 In that regard, the 



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‘I am’ that goes with ‘building’ actually denotes ‘I 
dwell’. He writes, “The way I am and you are, the 
way in which we humans are on this earth – that 
is building, that is dwelling.”10 Making poetry and 
dwelling are likewise related in their origin. To make 
poetry is not merely one (of  many possible ways of) 
“letting oneself  dwell”: it rather denotes “the actual 
ways of  letting oneself  dwell.”11

Heidegger terms the essential and actual (or 
proper, eigentlich) dwelling a sojourn in the Fourfold 
(Geviert). This ‘Fourfold’ denotes the gathering of  
four domains or ‘quarters’, namely heaven and 
earth, divine and mortal.12 And this gathering 
receives expression in a “world play,”13 that is, 
denotes the actual form in (and as) which human 
existence realizes itself  or manifests in a world of  
things. Accordingly, the truth about (human) being 
becomes manifest in this Fourfold: “We thought 
of  the truth of  Being in worlds[,] of  ‘world’ as the 
mirror play of  the Fourfold of  heaven and earth, of  
mortals and immortals.”14

More precisely, Heidegger conceives of  the 
dwelling in the Fourfold as a poetic way of  dwelling.

DWELLING POETICALLY
If  man dwells in the Fourfold, he dwells 

poetically.15  Heidegger takes over Hölderlin’s poetics 
of  man’s ‘poetic dwelling’: “Full of  merit is the man 
who in his toil manages to produce works.”16 Human 
toil and creation of  a work is here interpreted as an 
accomplishment (such as, for instance, man-made 
culture). But that accomplishment does not suffice, 
by itself, to understand human existence or Dasein 
in its foundation, insofar as culture is only a derived 
consequence of  the more original ‘poetic dwelling’ 
of  man. In his lecture on Hölderlin (winter 
semester, 1934-1935), Heidegger gives a clue for 
understanding ‘poetic dwelling’: “By this I mean: the 
historical existence or Dasein of  man is borne from 
a foundation, and directed by that [mode of] being 
which poets experience ahead [of  the rest of  us], 

The ‘I am ‘ 
that goes 

with ‘building’ 
actually 

denotes ‘I dwell’

“
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which they put into verbal garb for the first time and thereby bring to the 
people.” 17 It follows that the poetic has to be understood as an originating 
and measure-bestowing endowment,18 because to found something means 
“the foundation of  what hitherto was not.”19

Poetic (use of) language brings to the fore a design or concept of  
being for an entire community. The way that ‘being’ beckons man (here) 
corresponds to how the ancients conceived of  the divine to beckon 
in poetic creation. This leads Heidegger to say that “the poet […] is a 
founder of  being.”20 If  Heidegger says (with Hölderlin) that poets found 
“what persists,”21 what exactly does this founding moment denote? For 
poetry neither discovers, nor invents, the historic dimension of  human 
existence as such. Rather, that dimension is being ‘founded’ in this sense: 
poetry corresponds to the enunciation of  being itself. In the unconstrained 
creation of  poetry, the boundary between the merely possible and the 
real is created anew. The poet’s “dream yields the not-yet-appropriated 
fullness of  the possible and preserves a transfigured remembrance of  
the real.”22 That remembrance of  the real is such that “the possible and 
(more precisely) what is still to come, arrest our expectations, and arise as 
one where art bestows history, a dream.”23 This new order of  things—
Heidegger calls it the poets’ “dream”—is “terrible, because for those it 
shows itself  to, the dream rips them out of  a careless sojourn in a reality 
they are used to, and throws them into the horrors of  the unreal.”24 The 
expression “horrors of  the unreal” refers to the infinite expanse of  ‘the 
possible’; that expanse appears as “horror” because its fleeting nature 
cannot be grasped by purposive or practical rationality. The horror it 
instills is the terror of  the unknown and uncertain, a horror man attempts 
to evade and flee along his life’s path. The poet does not reside or remain 
in “a careless (mode of) residing”25  but copes with the fleeting nature (and 
contingency) of  human existence through his creative work.

For Heidegger, dwelling poetically ultimately means sensitive attention 
to things. This dwelling is a stance “in the presence of  the divinities,” 
a stance of  solemnity “towards the nearness of  things’ essence.”26 The 
poet attends (and respects) in his poetic dwelling the gathering of  things 
in a way that respects their diversity and coherence. The poet dwells in a 
manner that itself  is a preservation happening in poetic dwelling. But this 
is only possible so long as the poet remains awake and sober in relation to 
those things. 

Accordingly, the stance in dwelling poetically must be sober and 
attentive:

To acquire free use of  one’s own ability means to ever more exclusively acquiesce 
in being open towards what one is assigned – acquiesce in alertness of  what is yet 



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to come, in a sobriety that […] retains only what is 
needed. A sober, attentive openness towards the sacred 
is at once a concentration on the quiet, corresponding 
to that ‘resting’ on which the poet dwells and thinks. 
This resting is an ability to remain in one’s own.27

Such “learning” of  man’s own poetic essence 
simply requires a radical and attentive willingness to 
accommodate oneself  with the order of  the world, 
an order that arises from the world’s becoming. 
Or, because we already are poets, we have to become poets. 
This signals, not merely an element of  Pindar in 
Heidegger’s philosophy, but also the thought 
that ‘dwelling poetically’ is to remain (persist) in 
conformity with what is. ‘Dwelling poetically’ is 
something as yet to be attained—it is, for Heidegger, 
something one needs to make one’s own. By dwelling 
poetically one realizes a return to ‘one’s own’, a 
state rendered attainable through recognition of  
the foreign or alien: “To be freely able to draw on 
one’s own, to first acquire free use of  one’s own, 
first requires confrontation with the foreign.”28

 

Thus man has to become a “traveler,”29 needs “to 
render oneself, in what is foreign, strong and ready 
for what is one’s own; for what is one’s own cannot 
be acquired by a sudden grasp for the (apparent) 
own.”30 Man must appropriate what is his own, and 
that requires a process of  appropriation intimately 
related to experience of  the foreign. Such self-
appropriation is certainly not easy: “What is one’s 
own is hardest to find and, thus, easiest to miss.”31

 

Precisely because it is hardest to find, “its search has 
to be longest, and as long as it’s sought, it won’t be 
lost.”32 Heidegger calls this search for one’ s own a 
“steady reluctance,” namely “the reluctance of  one 
who dwells long on the same spot, looks forward 
and backwards, because he searches and persists 
in a point of  transition, a threshold. Finding and 
appropriating one’s own, is at once a reluctant 
transition.”33 He who is searching for his own, and 
understands himself  to be ‘on his way’ to himself  
or journeying to himself,34 dwells poetically.

For Heidegger, 
dwelling 

poetically 
ultimatley 

means sensitive 
attention to 

things.

“

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Heidegger already announced the relation between “self-hood”35 and 

actual dwelling in his Introduction to Metaphysics (delivered in the summer 
term of  1935): “Man only reaches himself, and is a Self, in a mode of  
historicity and questioning.”36 Man’s self-hood can thus not be attained 
without a certain stance, an idiosyncratic form of  residence or sojourn. 
Only by dwelling poetically can man be brought to accord with his own 
essence—meaning, can man realize what he always and already is: the 
most uncanny. “To be the most uncanny – that is the foundational trait 
of  man’s essence.”37 Via poetry and the disclosure of  historic space—the 
location of  our actual dwelling accomplished in poetry—humans attain 
access to themselves.

Poetic dwelling has its own measure in persistence: “Return endows the 
persistence of  what is unequal. When that persists, then that persistence 
alone is in which fate can persist in a state of  purity.”38 Heidegger calls this 
“persistence of  a persisting fate” “the measure of  actual dwelling,”39 as it 
shows itself  in the measure of  actual poetic dwelling. And that persistence 
is precisely a time of  celebration, meaning, a time for the unusual and the 
rare, and thereby the moment in which fertile rupture occurs with one’s 
customary and familiar relations to the world. The significance—even the 
reality—of  the familiar is put into question,  occasioning a return to the 
uncanny. Dwelling poetically is, in that light, this idiosyncratic persisting 
in the actual place, in the Fourfold opened up towards whichever thing 
we face: “To persist is, now, no longer the mere insistence of  the ready-
to-hand. Persistence happens. It brings the Four into the light of  their 
own.”40

DWELLING AND MEASURE
Heidegger’s reflections engage the ethical also in another respect—

with respect to their ideas of  measure and measuring. Here, the heavenly 
receives special attention: “Man has always already measured himself  as 
(hu)man in relation to something, and in relation to something heavenly.”41 

The heavenly, however, is only gathered by a measure—the divine. When 
Heidegger, with Hölderlin, tells us that in dwelling man “measures” himself  
against—that is, competes with42—the deity, Heidegger primarily means 
that existing man always has to find anew the interrelation that gathers 
things together. That measure is not rendered present by an invention of  
man—but only occurs in relation to the respective way in which a thing 
allows itself  to be seen. What Heidegger calls “measuring” reveals itself  in 
the act of  making poetry.43

The poet gathers a measure of  all things from the things showing 
themselves. This measure is, for Hölderlin, an unknown God,44 always 



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alien and never familiar. Equating the divinity 
with a measure—moreover, an unknown measure 
at that—is, however, problematic: “The divinity 
as He who He is, is unknown to Hölderlin, and 
the divinity qua this Unknown is verily the poet’s 
measure.”45 That the divinity should be something 
revealed by the heavens also means that Hölderlin’s 
divinity—the measure—is to be understood in the 
respective context of  its becoming apparent, in the 
heavens of  the Fourfold.

The divinity is kept open as precisely an open 
measure through its dwelling in the Fourfold. The 
poet’s measure is, in this sense, never an external 
and already decided one, but rather becomes 
the measure as things command, meaning, [the 
measure of] the Fourfold: “Building (das Bauen),” 
which is poetics, “appropriates from the Fourfold the 
measurements for all cross-measurements of  the 
spaces, which in turn assume [their] space through 
places that bestow them.”46 As Heidegger puts it 
in his 1970 essay “Man’s Dwelling,” “Earthly poets 
are just those who take measure of  a heavenly 
measure.”47  Precisely because the poet knows 
better than anyone else that there is nothing that 
is unique and bestows measure and meaning for 
all time, is he able to ever bestow new being: “It 
bestows higher clarity, one that enables all things to 
appear in their own and which provides a measure 
to all that is mortal.”48 In that regard, the poets’ 
saying(s) correspond to the voice of  being. Since 
being ever appears under new historical guises, 
there is a never-finished need for repetition, as 
occurs through being founded poetically.

Dwelling poetically is the possibility of  an actual 
sojourn of  man, in contrast to the careless sojourn 
in an age of  modern technology. In his lecture 
“Wherefore Poets?,” Heidegger emphatically 
notes that technology is, so to speak, an illusory or 
deceptive sojourn of  man. It is, “as if  there could 
be – for the relation of  essence, by which man is 
related to the whole of  being through the technical 

What 
Heidegger 

calls 
“measuring” 

reveals itself 
in the act of 

making poetry.

“

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will – a segregated residence in an annex building, an annex able to offer 
more than a transitory way out of  self  deceptions (such as taking refuge 
in the Greek pantheon).”49

 

In poetry, a return to ‘the open’ is drawn—that very open that remains 
shut in a technical ethos. To dwell poetically thus means to persist in that 
openness in which things come to the fore first and show themselves in 
their truth. It is about opening up to, and letting in, the truth of  things, 
the truth of  other people, of  the world. Insofar as the things-that-are 
(das Seiende) are conceived in their relative determinacy in relation to their 
historic origin, these things remain open towards being, in dwelling and 
thinking: “In thinking we first learn of  dwelling in that region, in which 
occur the overcoming of  being’s fate, the overcoming of  the constellation 
(das Gestell).”50 Only by man dwelling in the Fourfold, a Fourfold realized 
poetically, is the possibility of  ethos in an age dominated by ‘constellation’ 
possible. Here, the actual ethos is always already latently present in ‘the 
constellation’. Man cannot but relate to the poetic, cannot but be (in an 
actual or inauthentic way) poetic, for “even the man of  today’s age dwells, 
in his own way, poetically,”51 as Heidegger puts it in “Man’s Dwelling.” Yet, 
on the border of  paradox, Heidegger inserts an ethical measure into the 
poetic, into its very name: “Man of  the present age too dwells poetically 
in his own way – namely, that is, as per (unter) the name of  his Dasein, 
unpoetically.”52 Heidegger says, echoing Hölderlin, that our mode of  
dwelling today is “unpoetic.”53 It is a mode in which “man seizes measure 
from an earth that his machinations leave disfigured.”54

The ‘unpoetic’ dwelling in the ‘constellation’ is a sojourn in which man 
relates himself  to the whole world (all things in it, other people, and his 
own being) by seizing domination. If  the unpoetic nature of  our being in 
the world today is conceived as such, this means that “there is no measure 
on this earth, but rather that the earth can give no measure when it is 
quantified on a planetary scale, that the earth is carried away in the lack 
of  measure.”55 Poetic dwelling registers this in “the lack of  holy names” 
and “the deity’s death”: only a sojourn in the open region, which smacks 
of  the lack [of  holy names], permits insight into that, which today is, but 
from which it is lacking.”56 In this regard the poet’s role comes to the fore, 
paradigmatically: the poet is a paradigm and exemplar, for he not merely 
gazes but also shows, has “the demonstrating gaze for what is open, an 
openness in which the divinities alone become guests and men can build an 
abode within which the True is, and of  which men can grab hold of.”57 Such 
bestowing of  dwelling is the original dwelling of  the poet, for this measure 
originally founds the actual dwelling of  man. The poet accomplishes this 
by having the measure designed with ever a view to allowing himself  to get 



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close to the, ever differently appearing, world. The 
poet’s measure, put differently, is ever built anew as 
the situation commands.

POETIC SPEECH AND ITS DWELLING
Dwelling poetically, then, receives prominence 

in poetic speech. “How does man dwell poetically? 
He dwells thus because he speaks thus.”58 The 
poet draws on “the free use of  his own ability,”59 

meaning, he does not use language,60 but rather 
takes language for what it originally is, namely as 
endowment. His bestowing through language is set 
in conformity with being,61 and thus his endowment 
conforms to “the openness for what he is assigned 
to, the alertness of  what is yet to come.”62 The poetic 
endowment of  words resides thus in the openness 
for what is to come and ever possible. Such openness 
for the alien and foreign is the poetic dwelling 
of  the poet—a place of  residence that the gods 
visit where they are [our] ‘guests.’63 Only the poet, 
possessing an “essential gaze for the possible,”64

 

may create the very openness necessary to enable 
the gods to appear. The possible and the possible 
foundation of  all assembly65 can only appear when 
room for such an appearance has been opened. 
The divinities are thus guests in our language. 
Poetic dwelling must first become hospitality, a 
friendly waiting on and for the gods. Whether or 
not man welcomes the gods with hospitality is his 
own decision. If  he decides in favor then his words 
respond to the claims of  the gods. Consequently, 
man decides in favor of  his belonging to the 
occasion or happening. Poetic language serves 
conformity with that happening in which the gods 
only begin to speak (and commit themselves) to us.  
The word naming the divinities’ claim is the word 
remaining faithful to the particular (and only) self-
display of  the phenomena. A description of  how 
things are through poetic language is not a seizing, 
a determination of  a thing, but the literal mirroring 
of  that thing in the very manner it appears in. A 

The poet is a 
paradigm and 

exemplar, for 
he not merely 

gazes but also 
shows.

“

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word’s validity arises for Heidegger not in the “public claim of  what is 
written,”66  but purely in the word’s relation or obligation to the thing itself.

As Heidegger emphasizes time and again, man has to learn actual 
dwelling as the dwelling of  the poet. The poet joyously dwells in that “sparse 
nearness,”67 meaning, he knows that what appears is not the only possibility 
of  openness (of  becoming apparent), in contrast to man who only abides 
in the public. And since only poetic man “has the demonstrative gaze for 
the open,”68 it is his task to help other people to build their abodes such 
that in them is truth. The poet’s role is, however, for Heidegger “neither to 
instruct, nor to educate”, but rather “he permits the reader to let be, so that 
he may attain by himself  an affection towards the essential, to which the 
friend of  the family [the poet] already tends so as to talk to us.”69 Others 
don’t yet know that sojourn in “sparse nearness”—they have to yet learn 
how to dwell. The poet helps others to return to their home. This home 
is the proximity to the origin. In that home man recognizes himself, not 
only as “someone learning of  things,” but also as someone knowing that 
things are “in strife.”70 The fundamental mood of  reluctance is “the mood 
of  a thinking come home to the origin.”71 Akin to the underlying mood of  
reluctance in Heidegger’s 1936-1938 Contributions to Philosophy, reluctance 
here is the “knowledge that origin cannot be experienced immediately.”72

 

If  man persists in this fundamental mood, he knows that the mystery is 
more encompassing than any specific openness of  being, and he remains 
in a stance open to the possible. In dwelling poetically, man knows that the 
concealed, the secret, the original, and the  indemonstrable can never be 
transferred completely into the determinate and present.

CONCLUSION: DWELLING AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL ETHOS
Dwelling poetically turns out to be the actual sojourn, the actual 

ethos of  man. Man here remains open towards the possible, alert to how 
individual phenomena become apparent. If  we re-examine that ethos more 
carefully, it becomes impossible to reconcile with the very possibility of  
an existence bound by rules a priori. The measure of  poetic dwelling only 
ever arises from the respective sojourn in the company of  things, and not 
from a pre-existing measure. To dwell poetically one has to forfeit the very 
domain of  the moral, a domain in which good and evil have already been 
decided upon. By poetry, “the region will remain open for the presence of  
the mortals in [that region].”73 And yet this forfeiture of  morality occurs 
in favor of  an ethos in which the truth of  things, of  world and others, can 
attain their validity in their respective and very own way. In this way poetic 
dwelling connects to a philosophical ethos—because in this dwelling it is 
paramount to not miss out on the true self-appearance of  the phenomena. 



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Or put differently: the task is to take up a [form 
of] residence in which the equanimity74 towards the 
truth of  things is preserved—and not the obstinate 
will to security.

Furthermore, the philosophical ethos 
accentuated in dwelling poetically can be said to 
receive primary articulation as a phenomenological 
ethos. How the phenomena themselves are to be 
perceived can never be dictated externally, but 
exclusively from the phenomena themselves and 
the very context or correlation in which they appear 
to us in the first place. The phenomena and their 
possible characters are precisely what is preserved 
in poetic dwelling and its poetic, endowing speech.

Dwelling is for Heidegger of  such a kind that 
man has to take responsibility for himself. Dwelling 
thus carries an insurmountable intrinsic paradox: 
we always already dwell with what is original; 
precisely because we do, it remains concealed: “To 
dwell in one’s own is that which arises last, rarely 
comes together, and always remains hardest.”75 And 
that is why dwelling as dwelling has to be yet acquired 
when it comes to man, so that man can truly be 
what he already has been—namely, “uncanny” 
and foreign unto himself.76 “The most uncanny of  
the Uncanny is Man himself.”77 In his own being 
uncanny, foreign, and without home, resides man’s 
essence, even when man himself  may not see this. 
Humans essentially dwell in the Fourfold, and yet in 
the exiguous age of  modern technology they dwell 
without awareness of  their own existence: “Not 
yet are the mortals owners of  their own essence.”78 

It appears as if  man dwells asleep in the Fourfold. 
Dwelling becomes what is customary,79 and escapes 
notice. If  it does so escape notice, however, the 
essence of  dwelling “can never be pondered as the 
foundational trait of  being human.”80 Accordingly, 
the age of  technological domination becomes an 
age bereft of  home and earth. Man has become 
estranged to his own essential dwelling, and this 

We always 
already dwell 

with what 
is original; 
precisely 

because we 
do, it remains 

concealed.

“

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estrangement of  his essence constitutes a loss of  essence itself.

Just as home is a becoming—namely a return to one’s own through the 
unfamiliar and foreign,—dwelling in the Fourfold embodies that moment 
in which we sojourn once again with what is original. Beyond that, dwelling 
in the Fourfold denotes a specific dwelling radically different from 
everyday dwelling under the dominance of  technology. To at all recognize 
the “actual want of  dwelling”81 is enough to put us on a path to rescue, even 
if  that rescue can only happen by a re-claiming of  essential sojourn, of  
dwelling in nearness to the truth of  being. Heidegger’s thought “that the 
mortals have to ever first search for the essence of  dwelling, they have to 
yet learn how to dwell,”82 directly portends the domain of  original ethics and 
its original ethos.

Human being realizes itself  only by a sojourn in the Fourfold and the 
world of  things. Man’s essence only becomes manifest through a particular 
dwelling: “To spare the Fourfold – to rescue the earth, receive the heavens, 
expect the gods, and accompany mortals – this four-fold sparing is the 
simple essence of  dwelling.”83

Man has to acknowledge this ‘simple essence’ of  dwelling. Heidegger’s 
enlightenment of  man’s dwelling indicates the actual and thus highest form 
of  dwelling. Heidegger’s own reflections on ethos constitute a gesture 
indicating direction. There is a concealed and yet actual and original mode 
of  existence, one we have to seek. Dwelling in the Fourfold is something 
we have to yet reach. And we will only reach it by coming to recognize it 
as man’s true dwelling.

ENDNOTES
1. This paper builds on my book, Diana Aurenque, Ethosdenken: Auf  der 
Spur Einer Ethischen Fragestellung in der Philosophie Martin Heideggers (Freiburg 
im Breisgau: Verlag Karl Alber, 2001), and was translated by Stefan Koller.
2. Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in  the Heidegger Gesamt-
sausgabe (GA), volume 9, page 358.—Translator’s note: The Gesamtsausgabe is 
an ongoing effort to collect the complete works of  Heidegger in German. 
With the exception of  “Man’s Dwelling”, all Heidegger translations in 
this paper are original to the paper, and are from here on referenced in 
abbreviated form, by GA volume and page number.
3. Heidegger, “Essay on Heraclitus,” GA 55:214.
4. Translator’s note: Heidegger’s term for ‘being obliged’ denotes our being 
bound, existentially rather than morally, to something or other—even the 
world itself, as Heidegger explains in “Man’s Dwelling.” See Heidegger, 
“Man’s Dwelling,” GA 13:215.
5. Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” GA 7:163. For an alternative 



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translation of  this essay see Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 
trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper Row, 1971), 141-160.
6. Heidegger, “From the Experience of  Thinking,” GA 13:84.
7. Heidegger, “…Poetically Man Dwells…,” GA 7:193. For an alternative 
translation of  this essay see Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 213-229.
8. Translator’s note: As before, an idiomatic verb for ‘to make poetry’ is sorely 
lacking in English. Such a verb exists in German and Greek, and denotes 
not just the creation of  verse (rather than prose), but more generally, to 
make things unconstrained by preconception and established technique.
9. Cf. also Heidegger, Prolegomena, GA 20:213: “I dwell, reside in (and 
with) the world as my familiar other.”
10. Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” GA 7:149.
11. Heidegger, “…Poetically Man Dwells…,” GA 7:193.
12. Heidegger, “The Nature of  Language,” GA 12:202. The term further 
contrasts an understanding of  the world as ‘Gestell’, an understanding 
both ego-centric and dominated by means-ends practical rationality. 
For discussion of  the Fourfold, see also Heidegger, “…Poetically Man 
Dwells…,” “Building Dwelling Thinking,” and “The Thing,” as discussed 
below.
13. Ibid.
14. Heidegger, “The Turn,” GA 11:121.
15. Cf. Heidegger, “Language and Home,” GA 13:180.
16. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, GA 4:89.  For an alternative 
translation, see Martin Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, trans. 
Keith Hoeller (New York: Humanity Books, 2000).
17. Heidegger, On Hölderlins Hymnen ‘Germania’ and ‘The Rhein’, GA 39:184.
18. Cf. Heidegger, “Johann Peter Hebel,” GA 16:493-494: “True and 
elevated poetry always accomplishes this one thing only: bringing the non-
apparent into appearance.”
19. Heidegger, On Hölderlin’s Hymns ‘Germania’ and ‘The Rhine’, GA 39:184.
20. Ibid., 33.
21.Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderin’s Poetry, GA 4:41.
22. Heidegger, On Hölderlin’s Hymn ‘Remembrance’, GA 52:121.
23. Ibid.
24. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderin’s Poetry, GA 4:113.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 42.
27. Ibid., 118. Translator’s note: Observe that the German for ‘one’s own’ 
(das Eigene) here and in the sequel allows an impersonal reading where the 
English does not; comparable to how English translators of  Being and Time 
have to render Heidegger’s decidedely impersonal das Man as ‘the They’.



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28. Heidegger, On Hölderin’s Hymn ‘Remembrance’, GA 52:123.
29. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderin’s Poetry, GA 4:23-24.
30. Heidegger, On Hölderin’s Hymn ‘Remembrance’, GA 52:123.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., 124.
34. Or, Wanderung. See Heidegger, “Address on Hebel,” GA 16:537.
35. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, GA 40:152.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.,160.
38. Heidegger, Eludications of  Hölderin’s Poetry, GA 4:105.
39. Ibid.
40. Heidegger, “The Thing,” GA 7:175. Translator’s note: (to be) ‘ready-to-
hand’ is the near literal translation of  ‘Vorhanden(sein)’, a key term of  Being 
and Time. See Heidegger, Being and Time, GA 2.
41. Heidegger, “…Poetically Man Dwells…,” GA 7:199.
42. Translator’s note: The German ‘messen’ can importantly mean both.
43. Heidegger, “…Poetically Man Dwells…,” GA 7:200.
44. Cf. ibid., 200-201.
45. Ibid.
46. Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” GA 7:171.
47. Heidegger, “Man’s Dwelling,” GA 13:215. 
48. Ibid.
49. Heidegger, “Wherefore Poets?,” GA 5:294-295.
50. Heidegger, “The Turn,” GA 11:71. Translator’s note: ‘constellation’ 
(Gestell) denotes the (technological) contrast of  the Fourfold (Geviert).
51. Heidegger, “Man’s Dwelling,” GA 13:219. In order not to clutter 
the main text, lengthy quotations from this text have been moved to a 
separate Appendix below. See Appendix, section 31, including a less literal 
rendering of  the present line. See further Appendix, sections 1-9 on how 
Heidegger sets up his discussion of  Hölderlin.
52. Ibid. See also Appendix, section 31.
53. See Appendix, sections 22-28. Heidegger’s argument here builds on 
the foregoing analysis in sections 15-21.
54. See Appendix, sections 31-32.
55. See Appendix, sections 33-35, and cf. sections 29-30.
56. Heidegger, “The Lack of  Holy Names,” GA 13:235.
57. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, GA 4:148.
58. Heidegger, “Solicited Prolegomenon to a Poets’ Reading at Bühler 
Heights,” GA 16:470.
59. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, GA 4:118.



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60. Cf. Heidegger, What is Thinking, GA 8:132-133.
61. Cf. Heidegger, “Solicited Prolegomenon,” GA 16:470: “How does 
Man speak? He speaks in conforming to language. For actually, language 
speaks. Mortals only ever speak by conforming, and by thus having fulfilled 
their essence in relation to language’s own encouragement.” Translator’s 
note:  ‘Conform’ and ‘fulfil’ in German are cognates of  ‘language’ and 
‘speak’: it is impossible to render the ensuing poetic quality of  Heidegger’s 
sentences here.
62. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, GA 4:118.
63. Ibid., 120. Translator’s note: As will shortly become obvious, Heidegger 
plays here on the German term for hospitality, Gast-Freundschaft, lit. 
kindness to strangers, which in Greek is xenia (antonym: xeno-phobia): the 
stranger or xenos is shown hospitality, and the Greek gods would typically 
travel under the disguise of  a foreign visitor or xenos.
64. Heidegger, On the Essence of  Truth, GA 34:64.
65. Translator’s note: gathering (Versammlung) corresponds in ancient Greek 
to ekklesia, our word for church, as in ‘ecclesiastic’.
66. Heidegger, “Solicited Prolegomenon,” GA 16:471. 
67. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, GA 4:25.
68. Ibid., 148.
69. Heidegger, “Address on Hebel,” GA 16:541.
70. Heidegger, Elucidations of  Hölderlin’s Poetry, GA 4:36.
71. Ibid., 131.
72. Ibid.
73. Heidegger, “Man’s Dwelling,” GA 13:215. See Appendix, section 12, 
with sections 10-11, 13-14.
74. Translator’s note: Gelassenheit is cognate with the earlier ‘einlassen auf’, a 
verb used earlier to denote how man should be open to things—by letting 
them be as they are, also in relation to him, as opposed to seeking to 
control things by technical means or means-ends reasoning.
75. Heidegger, Hölderlin’s Hymn ‘The Ister’, GA 53:24.
76. Translator’s note: Heidegger plays on the German relation of  ‘uncanny’ 
(unheimlich) to the lack of  ‘home’ (Heim).
77. Heidegger, Hölderlin’s Hymn ‘The Ister’, GA 53:83.
78. Heidegger, “Wherefore Poets?,” GA 5:274.
79. Translator’s note: In German, ‘Gewöhnung,’ a pun on ‘dwelling’ (wohnen).
80. Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” GA 7:150.
81. Ibid., 163.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., 161. See again the definition of  the Fourfold.


