It is well known the strong impression caused in 1935 by the conference on “The Origin of the Work of Art”, when Heidegger exposed the polemical concepts of earth (Erde) and world (Welt). This intimate dyad, whose Hölderlinian roots did not escape the young Gadamer, represents one of the fundamental aspects of the Ereignis-Denken from the 1930s onwards, namely in its relationship with a non-metaphysical idea of nature. However, its elaboration within the framework of the conference, where the meaning of art does not cease to be preponderant, is far from exhausting a deep ontological dimension, which this renewed approach to the concept of world entails inside Heideggerian thought after the turn (Kehre). Through an extensive reading of his posthumous writings (ranging from the Beiträge zur Philosophie to different versions of the conference or some critical notes) we are now able to reach a better and more complete understanding with respect to the meaning of the world—after Being and Time and before the Geviert.
The aim of our presentation will be to clarify, on the basis of an analysis of these less known (and some recently published) writings, which phenomenological aspects can develop the new concept of world. Beyond a philological task, the interest of these writings lies particularly in how they advance a new way of linking the essence of the human being (as Da-sein) and the meaning of the world in its unfolding or swaying (Wesen), reinforcing thereby its (cosmo)genetical determination. Finally, we will try to assess the relevance of this new concept of world regarding some new tendencies of phenomenological cosmology—which, inspired by Fink, Patočka and Minkowski, experience an important renaissance nowadays.