soul, and spirit. What is that? Can we now. while correspondingly thinking in terms of the historicality of being, simply proceed in such a way that we interpret the essence of language out of the determination of human beings which takes its bearings from the historicality of being? No; for we are thereby still caught up in the notion of symbol. Above all, however, that would vitiate the task of grasping the origin of language out of the essential occurrence of beyng itself.
277. "Metaphysics" and the origin of the work of art
The question of the origin of the work of art is not intent on an eternally valid determination of the essence of the work of art, a determination that could also serve as a guideline for the historiological survey and explanation of the history of art. Instead, the question stands in the most intrinsic connection to the task of overcoming aesthetics, i.e., overcoming a particular conception of beings—as objects of representation. The overcoming of aesthetics again results necessarily from the historical confrontation with metaphysics as such. Metaphysics contains the basic Western position toward beings and thus also the ground of the previous essence of Western art and of its works. Overcoming metaphysics means giving free rein to the priority of the question of the truth of being over every "ideal," "causal," "transcendental," or "dialectical" explanation of beings. The overcoming of metaphysics is not a repudiation of philosophy hitherto, but is a leap into its first beginning, although without wanting to reinstate that beginning. Indeed, such a reinstating is not actual for historiology and not possible for history. Nevertheless, meditation on the first beginning (out of the necessity of preparing the other beginning) leads to an esteeming of inceptual (Greek) thought, which promotes the misunderstanding that this return to the Greeks is striving for some sort of "classicism" in philosophy. In truth, however, the "retrieval"—i.e., the more originary launching—of this questioning opens the solitary remoteness of the first beginning to everything that follows it historically. Ultimately, the other beginning stands to the first in a necessary, intrinsic, though concealed relation which includes at the same time the complete isolation of both, in accord with their character as origins. Thus, precisely where preparatory thinking most readily attains the sphere of the origin of the other beginning, the illusion arises that the first beginning is merely renewed and that the other beginning is simply a historiologically improved interpretation of the first.
What holds in general for "metaphysics" also applies to meditation on the "origin of the work of art" (a meditation that prepares a historically