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
Philosophy and literature narrative "Philosophus Autodidactus" as a response to al-Ghazali's "The Incoherence of the Philosophers", and then the 13th century Islamic theologian-philosopher Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a fictional narrative "Theologus Autodidactus" as a response to Abubacer's "Philosophus Autodidactus". The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche often articulated his ideas in literary modes, most notably in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", a re-imagined account of the teachings of Zoroaster. Marquis de Sade and Ayn Rand wrote novels in which characters served as mouthpieces for philosophical positions, and act in accordance with them in the plot. George Santayana was also a philosopher who wrote novels and poetry; the