Abstract

IN THE FOREWORD of Zur Seinsfrage Heidegger distinguishes two questions of being. One he speaks of in the form of the participle, die Frage nach dem Seiendem als Seiendem, the question about being as being. This he identifies with the tradition of metaphysics which he repudiates as forgetful of the real question of being. "The answering of this question," he adds, "refers at the same time to an interpretation of be [des Seins] which remains in what is unasked [im Fraglosen] and provides the ground and the basis for metaphysics." What is unasked in this first question of metaphysics has to be thought of as a second question which is spoken of in the form of the infinitive: die Frage nach dem Sein als Sein, the question about be as be. This is the question which Heidegger tried to raise at the beginning of Sein und Zeit and which remains for him as the task of thinking at the end of philosophy. It is a question which Heidegger was ultimately unable to answer but which he was also unable to put to rest. It is a question in which we are still floundering, caught up in what remains for us the question of metaphysics. It is time perhaps to see if the question has been rightly framed.