BOOK REVIEW 115 'Metaphysics', the question of origins and his preoccupation with questions of art and language. How little the customary 'scholarly preoccupation' with Heidegger enters the region of this thinker's question is unmistakably evident in its inability to leave Heidegger in peace, to leave him to the freedom of his way. The first requirement incumbent upon one who wants to 'understand' Heidegger is this: one does not grasp after ultimate answers, prejudge, or evaluate, but rather first of all simply listens to the one question which Heidegger thinks through. Such listening does not increase knowledge, nor does it determine answers to ultimate questions. It could be, however, that simply by listening, one's own thinking is imperceptibly but fundamentally transformed. The composed thinking which expects nothing and wants nothing for itself but which is prepared to let itself be tested and transformed by a claim is perhaps alone capable of experiencing what must be thought, that which has summoned Heidegger's thinking along its way. This introduction would like to be a signpost for this way; in fact, it should be nothing but a signpost by which he who seeks a way can orient himself, but which remains behind for him who has already set out on the way. Perhaps it can allow Heidegger's way to become provisionally visible for some as possibly their own way; for others it can lead a step nearer to the decision not to travel this way. However it may be, it will suffice if this introduction to Martin Heidegger's thinking elucidates to some extent Heidegger's path of thinking as a whole in terms of what he once said in a conversation with a Japanese guest about a very specific stretch of the way: 'I always followed only an obscure trace, but I did follow. The trace was a scarcely perceptible promise which bespoke a releasing into the open. It was at times dark and perplexing, sometimes flashing like a sudden insight which then again withdrew itself for a long time from every attempt to put it into language.' Poggeler (p. 7, referring to the Spiegel interview) What Poggeler writes in his Introduction is true but the trace that Heidegger left was not only the profoundity of historical thought but also the silence with which his involvement with fascism was maintained and the problematic question of the relationship between thought, political practice and the responsibility of thought and its ability to influence the political praxis of others. ANIL BHATTI Centre for German Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi