Over the past decade, an abundant number of Heidegger’s writings have been translated into English. Key among them are the lectures he delivered both prior to and following the writing of his magnum opus, Being and Time, which allow us as never before to chart Heidegger’s philosophical development. The Essence of Human Freedom, which derives from a set of lectures Heidegger delivered in 1930 at Freiburg, focuses on human freedom as the leading question of philosophy. Heidegger contends that this emphasis on freedom enables us to understand philosophy as a “going-after-the-whole” that is at the same time a “going-to-our-roots.” In other words, we must search for the essence of human freedom in the constant presence of being-in-the-world that precedes and grounds philosophical thinking. Heidegger plunders Kant’s understandings of freedom and Aristotle’s theories of metaphysics to establish his own theory that the understanding of human freedom provides the starting point for philosophy (metaphysics).