Introduction to Metaphysics

1. Introduction

Introduction to Metaphysics (Einführung in die Metaphysik) is a mid‑1930s work by Martin Heidegger that reopens what he calls the Seinsfrage, the question of Being. It takes as its guiding formulation the question:

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“Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”

Heidegger presents this not as a curiosity alongside other philosophical problems, but as the question that, in his view, underlies and exceeds the concerns of science, ethics, and religion. The work situates metaphysics as inquiry into Being as such rather than into particular entities, while at the same time insisting that this inquiry is historically situated and bound up with language.

The text is based on a 1935 lecture course at the University of Freiburg and was reworked for publication in 1953. Commentators typically treat it as a pivotal statement between Heidegger’s early project in Being and Time and his later, more overtly “historical” and “linguistic” thinking. It combines dense ontological reflection with detailed readings of Greek sources (Parmenides, Heraclitus, Sophocles) and with reflections on the situation of Europe in the 1930s.

Scholars read the book both as an “introduction” to Heidegger’s version of metaphysics and as a critical diagnosis of the Western metaphysical tradition, including what he regards as its culmination in modern technological culture.

2. Historical Context and 1935 Lecture Course

2.1 Intellectual and Political Setting

The 1935 lecture course was delivered in a Germany governed by National Socialism and in the midst of rapid institutional transformation of universities. Heidegger had resigned the Freiburg rectorship in 1934 but remained a professor. Commentators note that the course reflects both the politicized atmosphere of the time and his evolving distance from direct party engagement.

Intellectually, European philosophy was marked by debates between neo‑Kantianism, phenomenology, logical positivism, and various forms of existential thought. Heidegger positioned his project as neither scientific positivism nor traditional metaphysics, but as a fundamental questioning of the historical fate of the West.

2.2 The 1935 Course

The course, titled Einführung in die Metaphysik, was aimed at advanced students but presented as a general orientation in philosophy. It followed the standard pattern of a semester‑long Vorlesung, with Heidegger’s prepared text supplemented by oral elaboration (partly reconstructed from student notes).

Scholars often emphasize that the 1935 setting shapes Heidegger’s extensive remarks on Europe’s “spiritual situation,” the role of Germany, and the confrontation between “world powers,” themes that later readers interpret in light of his political commitments and the broader crisis of the interwar period.

3. Author and Composition History

3.1 Heidegger’s Position in his Career

By 1935 Heidegger was an established philosopher, known chiefly for Being and Time (1927). Many interpreters see Introduction to Metaphysics as belonging to a “middle period” in which he rethinks his earlier existential analytic of Dasein in more explicitly historical and linguistic terms. The lectures thus arise from a phase of transition rather than from the initial formulation of his project.

3.2 From Lecture to Book

The 1953 publication is based on Heidegger’s lecture manuscript and subsequent revisions. The standard German edition is GA 40 in the Gesamtausgabe. Editors and commentators stress that the printed text is not a mere stenographic transcript but a considered reworking.

A well‑known example of editorial intervention concerns the phrase about the “inner truth and greatness” of National Socialism: the 1953 edition adds a parenthetical gloss restricting this to a “confrontation with planetary technology and modern man.” Scholars debate whether such changes signal a distancing from earlier positions or mainly a reframing for post‑war readers.

3.3 Relation to Other Works

Commentators often relate Introduction to Metaphysics to contemporaneous lecture courses (e.g., on Hölderlin and Nietzsche) and to essays like “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Together these texts are viewed as elaborating Heidegger’s turn toward poetry, history, and the question of the “destiny” of Being, while still maintaining continuities with the ontological concerns of Being and Time.

4. Structure and Organization of the Work

The published work preserves the basic line of the 1935 course but is organized into a sequence of interconnected parts. Editions differ in subdivisions, but the following structure is widely recognized:

4.1 Exegetical Rhythm

Heidegger alternates between:

• Programmatic statements about metaphysics and the contemporary world.
• Close readings of Greek texts and terms.
• Methodological clarifications concerning the nature of questioning.

This rhythm gives the work a characteristic movement from abstract formulations to philological detail, then to sweeping historical diagnoses.

4.2 Position of Key Discussions

Commentators highlight certain structural “nodes”:

• The opening articulation of the fundamental question at the beginning of Part I.
• The extended discussion of physis and logos in the central portions.
• The lengthy commentary on Sophocles’ choral ode on the deinon (the uncanny) in the later sections.

These foci shape how readers map the internal architecture of the text and trace its transitions from ontology to language and history.

5. Central Arguments and Themes

5.1 The Fundamental Question

Heidegger presents “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” as the fundamental question of metaphysics. Proponents of his approach emphasize that it does not ask about any particular cause or origin but about the disclosure of beings as such, thereby shifting attention from entities to Being.

Opponents sometimes argue that this question is either ill‑formed or rests on dubious assumptions about “nothing.” Heidegger, however, insists that asking it exposes a pre‑theoretical understanding that humans always already have of Being.

5.2 Critique of the Metaphysical Tradition

A recurring thesis is that Western metaphysics has tended to reduce Being to a highest or most foundational being—God, substance, subject, will to power. Heidegger labels this tendency onto‑theology. He interprets much of the tradition as having forgotten the difference between Being and beings, a view some historians of philosophy find overly schematic.

5.3 Language and the Greek Beginning

A central theme is the claim that early Greek language—terms like physis, logos, aletheia—first articulated a more originary understanding of Being that later metaphysics obscured. The text argues that philosophical inquiry must therefore involve a retrieval of these linguistic origins. Classicists and philologists dispute how well Heidegger’s reconstructions match the historical record, but acknowledge their influence on subsequent philosophical readings of the Presocratics.

5.4 History, Nihilism, and Technology

Heidegger links the metaphysical tradition to the emergence of modern nihilism and technological domination. He suggests that conceiving Being as fully present, available, or calculable culminates in the modern view of beings as resources. Critics hold that this genealogical line is speculative; supporters regard it as a powerful diagnosis of modernity.

6. Key Concepts and Greek Terminology

6.1 Being and Beings

The book continually stresses the distinction between Being (Sein) and beings (Seiendes). Being is not a highest entity but that which “lets beings be.” This difference underlies the central question and orients the critique of onto‑theology.

6.2 Physis

Heidegger reads Greek physis not simply as “nature” but as:

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“emerging‑abiding sway” (aufgehendes, anwesendes Walten)

This is meant to name the self‑showing and self‑holding of what is. He contrasts this with later, more objectifying notions of nature as a collection of things or as a domain for scientific explanation.

6.3 Logos

Logos is interpreted as the gathering that lets beings appear and be articulated:

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Logos is “the letting‑lie‑before as something said.”

Rather than mere “reason” or “speech,” it is the event in which beings are drawn together and disclosed. Heidegger uses this to reframe the meaning of discourse and rationality.

6.4 Aletheia

Heidegger famously understands aletheia as unconcealment rather than correctness:

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Truth is “the happening of unconcealment.”

This reconception shifts emphasis from propositions matching facts to the primordial event in which beings emerge from hiddenness into openness.

6.5 Dasein and the Deinon

In later parts, the human being (Dasein) is interpreted via Sophocles’ notion of the deinon (often rendered “the uncanny” or “the formidable”). Dasein is the being who stands in the clearing of Being and is therefore both at home and not at home in the world. This double status underpins the themes of estrangement, historical responsibility, and the possibility of asking the question of Being at all.

7. Famous Passages and Political Controversies

7.1 The Fundamental Question

The opening articulation of the question

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“Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”

has become one of Heidegger’s most cited lines. It is often treated as emblematic of his attempt to radicalize metaphysics.

7.2 Inner Truth and Greatness of National Socialism

The most controversial passage concerns National Socialism:

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“…the inner truth and greatness of this movement (namely, the confrontation of planetary technology and modern humanity)….”

In the 1953 edition the parenthetical gloss appears; earlier versions did not contain it in this form. Interpretations diverge:

• Some readers view the phrase as evidence of ongoing philosophical sympathy with National Socialism, seeing the gloss as an attempt to retroactively sanitize the claim.
• Others contend that Heidegger is detaching the “inner truth” from the actual regime and reinterpreting it as a more general confrontation with technology, while conceding that the wording is provocative and opaque.
• A third strand sees the passage as indicative of a broader tendency to merge political events with a quasi‑mythical history of Being.

The handling of this sentence has significantly shaped the reception of the work, especially in debates about Heidegger’s politics.

7.3 Sophocles’ Choral Ode on the Deinon

Another widely discussed section is Heidegger’s extended reading of the chorus from Sophocles’ Antigone (“πολλά τὰ δεινά…”—“Many are the uncanny things…”). He interprets the deinon as naming the human being’s unsettling position between groundedness and groundlessness. Classicists often dispute the philological accuracy of this reading, while philosophers emphasize its role in articulating the notion of Dasein as uncanny.

7.4 Style and Rhetoric

The work’s dense, sometimes incantatory language, frequent neologisms, and sweeping historical claims are themselves a point of controversy. Critics describe the style as obscurantist or rhetorically manipulative; defenders argue that such language is necessary to unsettle inherited metaphysical habits and to think Being otherwise.

8. Legacy and Historical Significance

8.1 Place in Heidegger’s Oeuvre

Introduction to Metaphysics is widely regarded as a central text of Heidegger’s middle period. It is often seen as:

Commentators differ on how sharply they distinguish early and later Heidegger, but many agree that this work crystallizes themes—language, history, destiny—that dominate his subsequent writings.

8.2 Influence on Later Philosophy

The text has influenced:

• Hermeneutics (e.g., Gadamer), through its emphasis on historical understanding and language.
• Deconstruction (e.g., Derrida), especially via its treatment of presence, absence, and the history of metaphysics.
• Political and social philosophy, where its account of technology and nihilism informs critiques of modernity.

In analytic philosophy, the impact has been more limited, though the opening question is sometimes cited in discussions of “why is there something rather than nothing?”

8.3 Ongoing Debates

The book’s legacy is inseparable from controversies about Heidegger’s politics and his portrayal of the “destiny” of the West and of the German people. Some scholars argue that the ontology and the political motifs are deeply interwoven; others try to separate the philosophical insights from the historical entanglements.

Despite disagreements, Introduction to Metaphysics remains a standard reference point for discussions of metaphysics, the Presocratics, and the relation between philosophy, language, and history.