Although metaphysics inquires into being in a certain way in order thus to respond to the question put by beings as to what they are, metaphysics does not measure up to the thinking that strictly preserves being, and is thoroughly attuned to 'beings in the whole'.
Because by entrusting itself to beings metaphysics must renounce the knowing-awareness of be-ing, it can never by itself accomplish the grounding of Da-sein, that is, that which vouches for the en-ownment of the truth of be-ing unto beings. To this grounding belongs as the foremost contribution of man, magnanimity and forbearance, which equally decisively renounce "life's interests" and "eternal bliss" as measures for pursuing and judging beings.
As long as metaphysics holds power among beings and as long as this power has solidified itself in the off-shoots and imitations of metaphysics, that is, in the Christian and anti-Christian "world-views", be-ing is denied the dissemination into the 'nothing' of the 'free-play of the time-space' of a history - into the 'nothing' that arises out of be-ing and sways only from out of be-ing.
The lecture "Was ist Metaphysik?" ['What is Metaphysics?'] which maintains itself in an explicitly limited, yet strictly modern, "perspective" insofar as it inquires from a modern basic form of relating to beings as such, that is, sciences [G376], goes already beyond metaphysics as the determination of beingness of beings. And yet, this lecture designates this 'going beyond' and the so-attained positioning of the inquiry simply as the actual metaphysics, so to speak as the meta-metaphysics.
This lecture preserves the historical tradition for a rigorous dissociating exposition, and without specifically naming Da-sein but with a view towards Da-sein this lecture simultaneously indicates something else, namely the question concerning the truth of be-ing. None of the things that is said in this regard, namely the "nothing", the "dread", the "logic", the 'preeminence of attunement', is by itself thematically significant as far as the content is concerned. What alone is singularly decisive is the experience of that which is not a being and cannot be a being and yet above all raises beings as beings unto the openness of its sway.
1 Lecture of 1929 in Wegmarken, GA 9, pp. 103-22.