The above question does not originally come from Levinas' philosophy. This is the old question: what is peculiar for man as man? We don't know its ancestry, but no doubt people have been asking this question since antiquity. In his Letter on Humanism, Heidegger examines this problem again: In what does the humanity of man consist?
On November 10, 1946, Jean Beaufret addressed Heidegger: "Comment redonner un sens au mot 'humanisme'?"1 Heidegger responded in December. In fact, he reworked and prepared his response to Beaufret's inquiry in 1947 for publication and the result was published as Letter on Humanism. The occasion for the correspondence is Jean-Paul Sartre's essay Existentialism and Humanism (1946). In Sartre's view, there is not once and for all a definable "human nature." Existentialism defines man not by his predestined essence—such an essence does not exist—but by his actions. Sartre insists that man's freedom to act is rooted in subjectivity, which alone grants man his dignity and is the only possible basis for humanism.2 People should be judged in view of their engagements. For Sartre, humanism's focus is the individual in the capacity to be an author of deeds and works. But according to Heidegger, who rejects subjectivity and activism as a possible point ofdeparture, humanism underestimates man's unique position in light of Being. To be human is to be the shepherd and guardian of Being. The guardianship accomplishes the manifestation of Being insofar as man brings the manifestation to language through his thinking. Thinking is not merely "l'engagement dans l'action" for and by beings; thinking is l'engagement by and for the truth of Being. In Heidegger's perspective, Beaufret's question, "How can some sense be restored to the word humanism?" contains an assumption that this word has lost its meaning and at the same time presupposes a desire to retain it.