The question of the nature of the living is not an episode in Heidegger's thought motivated by the writings of Max Scheler and Helmuth Plessner, but rather it occupied the young Heidegger as early as 1909/10. This question is addressed in greater detail in his lecture "The Basic Concepts of Metaphysics" from the winter semester of 1929/30. Heidegger's work, which can be seen as a teaching piece of phenomenological research practice, was inspired by Jakob von Uexküll's daring methodological new approach within biology, from which Heidegger achieved a categorical determination of the living that stood in controversy to mechanism (Wilhelm Roux) and vitalism (Hans Driesch). Starting from the categorical formulation of the living, this study aims to adequately understand and locate corporeality within Heidegger's philosophy for the first time.