Metaphysics becomes visible in its history only if the questions presiding in metaphysics are grasped and the way those questions are treated in metaphysics is unfolded. To what extent does history teach? What is meant thereby?
The occurrence of the question of beings as such, the occurrence of the interrogation of beingness, is in itself a determinate opening up of beings as beings, in such a way that the human being thereby receives essential determination (homo animal rationale), a determination which arises out of this opening up. Yet what does this opening up of beings actually open with regard to beingness and thereby with regard to beyng? A history, i.e., a beginning along with its derivations and its advancements, is required to make possible (for those who are beginning to question) the realization that refusal pertains intrinsically to the essence of beyng. This knowledge, because it thinks nihilism still more originarily, all the way down to the abandonment by being, is the genuine overcoming of nihilism. The history of the first beginning is in this way completely delivered from the semblance of futility and sheer errancy; now for the first time a great illumination comes over all previous works of thought
88. The "historical" lecture courses belong in the sphere of this task
The "historical" lecture courses belong in the sphere of this task.
To make visible Leibniz's un fathom ably multifarious way of questioning
but to think Da-sein instead of the monas,
to follow Kant in carrying out his main steps but, through Da-sein, to
overcome the "transcendental" approach,
to work out Schelling's question of freedom but to ground the question
of "modalities" differently,
to bring Hegel's systematics within the predominant view but to think
it quite oppositionally,
and to venture an encounter with Nietzsche as the closest one but to
realize that he is the furthest one from the question of being.
These are a few ways, independent and yet interrelated, leading always and only to knowledge of the one unique matter: that the essential occurrence of beyng requires the grounding of the truth of beyng and that this grounding must be carried out as Da-sein. Thereby all idealisms, as well as the previous metaphysics and metaphysics in general, are overcome as a necessary development of the first beginning. The latter in this way falls again into darkness, to be grasped as such only out of the other beginning.