Abstract

In his lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger discusses three different forms of poverty and deprivation. First of all, the poverty in world of the non-human animal, second, the poverty in the being of contemporary Dasein, and, third, the deprivation of world in the fundamental attunement of profound boredom. This essay discusses these three forms of poverty or deprivation, with the goal to offer a preliminary analysis of Heidegger’s distinction between the human and the non-human animal.