The object of the present study is an interpretation of the category of subjectivity as central to the understanding of what Heidegger calls the “world picture” of modernity. In Heidegger's view, the emergence of the modern world picture cannot adequately be explained as long as we attempt to understand it simply in terms of a contrast with the Ancient or medieval worlds. This is because what is at stake in the emergence of the subject is the activity of “world-picturing” itself, a form of representation that helps secure modernity as something wholly new. As Heidegger goes on to say, “the fact that whatever is comes into being in and through representedness transforms the age in which this occurs into a new age in contrast with the preceding one.”