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 in itself 'Being in itself' to be at the same time the most vague and general concept possible to contemplate, but also the topic of greatest interest to him as a philosopher. In Sartrean existentialism, being-in-itself ("être-en-soi") is also contrasted with the being of persons, which he describes as a combination of, or vacillation or tension between, being-for-itself ("être-pour-soi") and being-for-others ("I'être-pour-autrui"). Being-in-itself refers to objects in the external world — a mode of existence that simply is. It is not conscious so it is neither active nor passive and harbors no potentiality for transcendence. This mode of being is relevant to