seiend

étant [ETEM] being [BTJS] ente [STMSCC] NT: ‘seiend’. Heidegger translates Plato’s present participle ὄν by this present participle of the verb ‘sein’ (‘to be’). We accordingly translate ‘seiend’ here and in a number of later passages by the present participle ‘being’; where such a translation is inconvenient we shall resort to other constructions, usually subjoining the German word in brackets or in a footnote. The participle ‘seiend’ must be distinguished from the infinitive ‘sein’, which we shall usually translate either by the infinitive ‘to be’ or by the gerund ‘being’. It must also be distinguished from the important substantive ‘Sein’ (always capitalized), which we shall translate as ‘Being’ (capitalized), and from the equally important substantive ‘Seiendes’, which is directly derived from ‘seiend’, and which we shall usually translate as ‘entity’ or ‘entities’. (See our note i, H. 3 below.) [BTMR:1]

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When Heidegger uses das Seiendste, seiender, and seiend in Contributions [GA65], He does not assume a chain of beings and its inherent hierarchy. Although these words bring to mind the Platonic ὄντως ὄv and the Thomistic maxime ens, what is to be disclosed by them is called in the Contributions “restoration of beings.” Thus our renditions of these words with “most being” and “more being” are to be taken not in the sense of a series of superlatives but as indicating restoration of beings. [GA65EM:xxiii-xxiv]