and subsequently guiding, determinations of being were gained.
This demonstration of the provenance of the fundamental ontological concepts, as the investigation which displays their "birth certificate," has nothing to do with a pernicious relativizing of ontological standpoints. The destruction has just as little the negative sense of disburdening ourselves of the ontological tradition. On the contrary, it should stake out the positive possibilities in that tradition, and that always means to stake out its limits. These are factically given with a specific formulation of the question and the prescribed demarcation of the possible field of investigation. Destruction does not relate itself in a negative way to the past: its critique concerns "today" and the dominant [23] way we treat the history of ontology, whether it is conceived as the history of opinions, ideas, or problems. Destruction does not wish to bury the past in nullity; it has a positive intent. Its negative function remains tacit and indirect.
The destruction of the history of ontology essentially belongs to the formulation of the question of being and is possible solely within such a formulation. Within the scope of this treatise, which has as its goal a fundamental elaboration of the question of being, the destruction can be carried out only with regard to the fundamentally decisive stages of this history.
In accord with the positive tendency of this destruction, the question must first be asked whether and to what extent in the course of the history of ontology in general the interpretation of being has been thematically connected with the phenomenon of time. We must also ask whether the problematic of temporality [Temporalität], which necessarily belongs here, was fundamentally worked out or could have been. Kant is the first and only one who traversed a stretch of the path toward investigating the dimension of temporality [Temporalität]—or allowed himself to be driven there by the compelling force of the phenomena themselves. Only when the problem of temporality [Temporalität] is pinned down can we succeed in casting light on the obscurity of his doctrine of schematism. Furthermore, in this way we can also show why this area had to remain closed to Kant in its real dimensions and in its central ontological function. Kant himself knew that he was venturing forth into an obscure area: "This schematism of our understanding as regards appearances and their mere form is an art hidden in the depths of the human soul, the true devices of which are hardly ever to be divined from Nature and laid uncovered before our eyes."1 What it is that Kant shrinks back from here, as it were, must be brought to light thematically and m principle if the expression "being" ["Sein"] is to have a demonstrable meaning. Ultimately the
1. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 180-81.