uniqueness of Hölderlin in the history of beyng must be established; all historiological comparisons, whether from the viewpoint of "literature" or poetry, all "aesthetic" judgment and enjoyment, and all "political" evaluation must be overcome, so that the moments of those who "create" might receive their "time" (cf. Überlegungen VI, VII, VIII).
The historical destiny of philosophy culminates in knowledge of the necessity to create a hearing for the words of Hölderlin. The ability to hear corresponds to an ability to say which speaks out of the question-worthiness of beyng, for this question-worthiness is the least that has to be accomplished so as to prepare a space for the word. (If everything were not perverted into the "scientific" and the "literary-historiological," then one would have to say that a preparation of thought must occur in order to interpret Hölderlin. To "interpret" does of course not mean here to make "understandable"; instead, it means to ground the projection of the truth of his poetry in the meditation and disposition wherein future Da-sein oscillates.) (Cf. Überlegungen VI and VII on Hölderlin.)
This historical characterization of the essence of philosophy grasps philosophy as the thinking of beyng. This thinking is never allowed to flee into a form of beings and, in such a form, to experience all the clear expanse of what is simple out of the gathered riches of the ordained darkness of the simple. This thinking can also never pursue dissolution into formlessness. On this side of form and formlessness (which indeed exist only in beings), in the abyss of the ground of form, this thinking must grasp the propulsion of its thrownness and bear it into the open realm of the projection. The thinking of beyng is very different from every adequation to objects, for this thinking must itself belong to that which is to be thought, because beyng does not allow its own truth to be something added to it or applied to it but, instead, "is" itself the essence of truth. Truth, the clearing of what is self-concealing, the clearing in whose open realm the gods and humans are appropriated to their en-counter, itself opens up beyng as history. We perhaps need to think this history if we are to prepare the space which must preserve in resonance Hölderlin's words at their proper time, words that again name the gods and humans, so that this resonance might dispose those basic dispositions which ordain future humans to the stewardship of the indigence of the gods.
This characterization of philosophy in terms of the historicality of being requires an elucidation which is supported by a recollection of previous thinking (metaphysics) but which at the same time rejoins this thinking and what is to come in the way they belong together historically.
The name "metaphysics" is employed here to characterize unconditionally the entire previous history of philosophy. It is not restricted