According to Martin Heidegger, metaphysics is a foundational mode of questioning that seeks to understand the nature of Being and existence. However, Heidegger radically reinterprets metaphysics, moving away from traditional approaches that focus on abstract categories or the essence of things, and instead placing the question of Being (Sein) at its center.
Key Aspects of Heidegger’s View on Metaphysics
1. Metaphysics as the Question of Being
• For Heidegger, metaphysics is fundamentally about asking the question of Being: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” This question forms the basis of his philosophical project, particularly in Being and Time (1927).
• Traditional metaphysics, according to Heidegger, has forgotten or obscured this central question, focusing instead on beings (entities) rather than Being itself.
2. Critique of Traditional Metaphysics
• Heidegger critiques Western metaphysics, starting with Plato and Aristotle, for prioritizing ontic questions (concerning specific entities or categories) over ontological ones (concerning Being as such).
• He argues that metaphysics has fallen into the trap of reducing Being to something present-at-hand, conceptualized in terms of presence, substance, or causality, thereby neglecting its deeper, more fundamental nature.
3. Metaphysics as a Historical Epoch
• Heidegger views metaphysics not just as a discipline but as the guiding framework of Western thought since its inception. Each era of Western metaphysics has defined Being in a particular way—e.g., as idea (Plato), substance (Aristotle), God (medieval thought), subjectivity (Descartes), or will to power (Nietzsche).
• For Heidegger, this history of metaphysics culminates in technological thinking, which reduces Being to a resource for human use—a phenomenon he calls enframing (Gestell).
4. The Question of the Nothing (Das Nichts)
• In his 1929 lecture What Is Metaphysics?, Heidegger provocatively claims that metaphysics begins with an encounter with nothingness (das Nichts).
• Nothingness is not a mere negation or absence but an essential aspect of existence that reveals the mystery of Being. Heidegger suggests that anxiety (Angst)—a confrontation with the groundlessness of existence—opens us to this encounter with nothingness.
• “The nothing nothings” (Das Nichts nichtet) is his way of describing how nothingness actively discloses the limits and finitude of human understanding, pushing us toward the question of Being.
5. Metaphysics as Grounding and Overcoming
• While Heidegger acknowledges the historical role of metaphysics in grounding human understanding, he also seeks to overcome metaphysics (Überwindung der Metaphysik).
• He does not reject metaphysics outright but seeks to move beyond its limitations, transitioning from metaphysics to what he calls a “thinking of Being” or “the event” (Ereignis) in his later work. This shift involves a deeper engagement with Being, free from metaphysical frameworks.
6. Metaphysics and Human Existence
• Metaphysics, for Heidegger, is not a detached intellectual exercise but deeply tied to human existence (Dasein).
• Dasein is the being for whom Being matters, and it is through Dasein’s existential questioning and openness to Being that metaphysics gains its significance.
Heidegger’s Metaphysics and Your Context
Heidegger’s interpretation of metaphysics aligns intriguingly with your interest in problematique and the wound as the site of Ereignis. For Heidegger:
• The wound of metaphysics lies in its historical forgetfulness of Being, which has led to an alienation from the ground of existence.
• The Ereignis (“event of appropriation”) represents a way of thinking beyond traditional metaphysics, where Being is not objectified but experienced as a dynamic unfolding or event.
In this sense, metaphysics for Heidegger is both a crisis (as in the forgetting of Being) and a call to recover a more fundamental mode of thinking, resonating with your exploration of existential roots and the transformation of trauma into event.
