Being and Time explanation of the understanding preceding any other way of knowing, such as the use of logic, theory, specific regional ontology. At the same time, there is no access to being other than via beings themselves—hence pursuing the question of being inevitably means questioning a being with regard to its being. Heidegger argues that a true understanding of being ("Seinsverständnis") can only proceed by referring to particular beings, and that the best method of pursuing being must inevitably, he says, involve a kind of hermeneutic circle, that is (as he explains in his critique of prior work in the field of
Being and Nothingness of metaphysics which denies or refuses grace inevitably ends by setting up in front of us the image of an atrophied and contradictory world where the better part of ourselves is finally unable to recognise itself." The philosopher Jean Wahl criticized Sartre's arguments about the topic of "nothing". The philosopher Frederick Copleston, writing in "A History of Philosophy" (1946–1986), described Sartre's view that all human actions are the result of free choice as "highly implausible", though he noted that Sartre had ways of defending his position. The British philosopher A.J. Ayer said that, apart from some psychological insights, the book