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of this structure to the problem of the λόγος. The question concerning the essence of world is a fundamental question of metaphysics. The problem of world as a fundamental problem of metaphysics finds itself led back to logic. Logic is therefore the proper basis of metaphysics. The connection here is so insistently obvious that we would be amazed if it had not insistently forced itself upon the attention of philosophy from time immemorial. And indeed, as we have briefly shown with respect to the problem of world, this connection provides the basis and path for the whole of Western metaphysics and its questions, insofar as it is logic that prescribes the examination of all problems with respect to the λόγος and its truth as problems of metaphysics, that is, as questions concerning being. But this implies more than we can possibly imagine at first sight. The sharpest pointer to this state of affairs lies in the fact that today, without thinking about the origin of the matter at all, we quite unawares and blithely designate as categories those elements of being which we recognize as the proper ones and make into a problem of metaphysics. κατηγορία, the Greek for assertion, designates those moments which apply to the λόγος in a particular way, moments which the λόγος necessarily asserts as the κατηγορία which accompany it, which accompany assertion and have their determinate possibilities. The determinations of being are grasped as categories, i.e., as determinations of beings and with regard to how these beings stand in respect of the λόγος. This fundamental orientation on the part of metaphysics toward the λόγος permeates not only philosophy—the determinations of being as 'categories'—and not only scientific thought in general, but all of our explanatory and interpretive comportment toward beings. In spite of this, we must pose the question of whether this connection between logic and metaphysics, which has utterly ossified into self-evidence for us, is justified; whether there is, or must be, a more originary problematic; and whether or not precisely the usual way of asking metaphysical questions orients itself toward logic in the broadest sense precisely because insight into the peculiar character of the problem of world has hitherto been obstructed.

Before pursuing the structural moment of the 'as' any further, let us set out once again the connection between the 'as' and the guiding problem of World. We have formulated the problem of world with the thesis that man is world-forming. Thus we have indicated a connection between man and world. Perhaps the determination of the essence of man is identical with the Unfolding of this problem of world-formation. We must not draw upon any arbitrary definition of man to elucidate the problem of world but must rather adopt as our own a perspective upon man from within which the essence of man himself at least becomes questionable. We do not wish to tie ourselves down to a definition, but rather to unfold the problem in terms of a fundamental