The Hermeneutics of Existence: Revisiting Heideggerian Ontological Hermeneutics ARCHIE R. MAGARAO Introduction Martin Heidegger What the contemporary hermeneutics consider as the “hermeneutic turn” is attributed to Martin Heidegger. He initiated a so-called hermeneutics of existence in his notion of the Dasein (there-being). He also used the word “hermeneutics” in the context of his larger quest for a more “fundamental” ontology. [1] His conception of understanding is something that is not static but dynamic, having the power “to be”. Nevertheless, for Heidegger “understanding is the power to grasp one’s own possibilities for being, within the context of the lifeworld in which one exists.” [2] Understanding and the “World” What is the world? One might be wrong in conceiving the “world” ( Welt ) as we understood it now when Heidegger coined it. The “ world is not the whole of all beings but the whole in which the human beings (Dasein) always fin