In Pursuit of the Question of Being: A Journey to Heidegger’s Hut

Journey to Heidegger’s Hut is the eleventh volume in the İbrahim Kalın Library series, published by İnsan Publishing in September 2025. The idea for the book emerged from the author’s 2019 visit to Heidegger’s hut, located on the slopes of the Black Forest where the philosopher had retreated into seclusion. The book narrates the author’s intellectual journey shaped by this visit. Kalın emphasizes that his purpose in going to the hut was not to chase a mystery, but rather his interest in Heidegger’s thought and the enduring connection he had formed in his mind with the question of Being.

As I began reading the book, I found myself searching for the location of the hut on maps. Where exactly was Todtnauberg? On what kind of hillside was the hut built? What could be seen from its window? As I continued reading, I realized that my initial curiosity was directed not only toward the place, but toward the things themselves. Perhaps the desire to view the hut as an object and to know its position, form, and details was a small sign of what Heidegger meant when he said that we often attempt to grasp Being through visible objects. Kalın opens the book precisely by connecting this curiosity about a concrete hut to a deeper engagement with the human act of thinking.

The book consists of nine chapters. While the early chapters revolve around impressions of the hut and the question of Being, the later ones more clearly focus on themes such as the limits of technical thinking, how modernity has estranged the human from its natural intimacy with the world, the ways in which truth comes into disclosure, poetic dwelling, and anthropocentrism. Other concepts related to Being form the underlying structure of each chapter.

The author’s narrative deepens through methods such as tracing the etymological roots of concepts, providing examples, and re-conceptualizing them across different contexts. For readers familiar with Heidegger, the book’s repeated return to certain concepts will not be surprising. These repetitions, in fact, benefit those less accustomed to philosophical texts.

Rather than offering a systematic exposition of Heidegger’s thought, the book presents a narrative of how this thought has shaped the author’s own philosophical journey. Kalın’s choice to avoid rigid systematization does not render the work overly theoretical for the reader.

His decision to engage the question of Being through Heidegger is no coincidence. Heidegger is among the thinkers who most comprehensively analyze how modernity distances the human from the truth of Being. In his philosophy, Being, space, sense of place, dwelling, technology, truth, and poetry are not separate topics but interrelated concepts required for approaching Being.

One of the central concerns that Kalın emphasizes is precisely how the way of life constructed by modern humans—based on speed, technology, and calculation—progressively weakens their relation to Being. As the chapters unfold, he occasionally invokes Mulla Ṣadrā, Ibn Sīnā, Sufi thought, and the Turkish poetic tradition, reminding us how the question of Being has also been addressed within Eastern thought, thereby showing that ontological inquiry is not confined to the West.

A central theme of the book is the assessment that the modern world’s civilization paradigm—centered on reason, science, progress, and technology—has, in Heidegger’s thought, obstructed openness to Being. Kalın recalls Heidegger’s well-known remark: “Only a God can save us.” According to Heidegger, modernity is characterized by humanity placing itself at the center of the world and transforming everything into a calculable, plannable, and controllable object.

Throughout the chapter, Kalın unpacks the background of this statement, arguing that technology has become a worldview, and that a gaze which commodifies everything ultimately exhausts both the world and itself. In the same chapter, Kalın also engages with the justified debates surrounding Heidegger’s political stance. The antisemitic statements in the Black Notebooks and Heidegger’s political affiliations are acknowledged as significant issues that cast a shadow over the philosopher’s entire body of thought. Kalın presents this debate without ignoring it, yet without allowing it to reduce Heidegger’s thinking as a whole. This reflects a cautious yet open approach. He stresses that Heidegger’s politically problematic position does not entirely invalidate his conception of Being, his critique of techno-civilization, or his understanding of truth—but that these ideas must be approached with care.

Kalın goes on to examine how the calculating and utilitarian logic of modern reason impoverishes both human beings and objects. These reflections reminded me of the frantic rush to meet our daily goals at the sound of the morning alarm. The very acts we undertake in order to live can make life itself invisible. The author interprets the concept of murāqaba in the sense given in the Sufi tradition—as an inner attentiveness, vigilance, and orientation toward truth. The connection he draws between this concept and Heidegger’s understanding of Being is one of the original contributions of the book. Ibn Sīnā’s view of nature and healing, Hölderlin’s poetic thought, and the concept of ʿilm al-yaqīn are elaborated as complementary and interwoven examples.

As the book progresses, the discussion of modernity becomes increasingly tied to the human being’s position on earth—that is, their mode of dwelling. Kalın opens this part with Heidegger’s citation from Hölderlin: “Our dwelling on the earth is poetic.” Here, Kalın does not reduce space to a matter of shelter, but treats it as an openness in which Being can reveal itself to the human. As I read this part, the transformation of a mere space into a meaningful place began to feel more resonant. What renders a place memorable is not its location or physical properties, but the fact that it allows for an opening between human beings and Being.

The book does not consider the proper measure of the human being to lie within themselves, but rather as the result of a connection established with place, time, death, and the transcendent. The section in which truth is discussed constitutes the most philosophically intense part of the book. Kalın explains that, beginning with Plato, truth has been confined to meanings such as correctness and correspondence, which has led to the forgetting of its original sense of disclosure. The relationship between truth and Being is explored through concepts such as aletheia, opening, visibility, and manifestation (ẓuhūr).

In the chapter titled Ego-Centricity or the Tragedy of Humanism, the book explains how modern humanism uproots the human by placing them at the center of the world. It conveys Heidegger’s view that the human being is not the master of thought, but a witness to the unfolding of Being. Kalın emphasizes that humanity’s desire to reconstruct the world according to the standards of its own mind consumes both the world and the human. He also refers to Heraclitus in this chapter, noting that truth is not something to be sought in distant places, but can only be perceived through a careful and appropriate gaze.

Truth resides within everyday life; however, this visibility emerges only when the human gives up their insistence on self-centrality. In this context, Kalın uses Heidegger’s concepts to explain the relationship between the excess brought about by humanism and the human being’s estrangement from their own existential domain. While speaking about the presence of truth in everyday life, Kalın recalls the story of how Ara Güler discovered the ancient city of Aphrodisias by noticing columns in a village coffeehouse. As I read these lines, I too found myself wondering how many ancient cities lie before our very eyes, yet remain outside our field of vision.

Journey to Heidegger’s Hut shows how the speed-, technology-, and calculation-driven structure of the modern world renders Being invisible, while opening a door to ontological thought. Kalın interprets the hut as the spatial counterpart to Heidegger’s question of Being. He directs the reader toward the act of thinking itself. The encounters stretching from Ṣadrā to Heidegger remind us how different horizons can coexist. The author’s resistance to systematization stems from his effort to grasp the vitality of Being without imprisoning it in objective concepts.

What emerges is not a book of definitive conclusions, but one that foregrounds the journey itself as a way of thinking. Rather than offering final answers, the book leaves behind a voice that invites us to reconsider our relationship with the world. That is why, when I closed the book, what remained with me from that journey to the hut was not an academic debate, but a desire to discover Being. May it reach many readers.