Overcoming metaphysics is an attempt around which Heidegger’s later thought in its entirety revolves. The attempt at overcoming metaphysics holds together Heidegger’s later writings and aphorisms and lets them announce themselves as repeated attempts at thinking this overcoming further.
But this does mean that the notion of overcoming appears only in Heidegger’s later thinking-philosophizing, for it could be traced back to Being and Time, but it is only in Heidegger’s later thought that the attempt at overcoming metaphysics becomes more frequent, central, and dominant.
Overcoming Metaphysics by Not Passing Through the Metaphysical
To Heidegger’s early arguments for the notion of overcoming metaphysics belong his insistence that all ontology and every transcendental questioning-investigating of philosophy must be rejected and his view that the holding sway of logic in metaphysics must be overcome. But how is this overcoming to take place?
This question is important because the history of philosophy, the history of metaphysics, is itself full of attempts at moving beyond the ordering-categorizing of metaphysics, attempts at leaving behind the oppositions and dualisms of the metaphysical thinking-philosophizing; attempts that render apparent and confirmed the holding sway of metaphysics; that is, the impossibility of escaping metaphysics and its structures of thought.
Kant’s transcendental philosophy, naturalism, Nietzsche’s reversal of Platonism, positivism, and the logical-mathematical thinking that grounds modern technology are all paths through which metaphysics extends itself, confirms its force, and continuously re-constitutes itself.
Hence, for Heidegger, metaphysics cannot be overcome by merely turning to, for instance, logic or the logical-mathematical, since to turn to logic or the logical-mathematical is merely to confirm the holding sway of metaphysics by allowing it to extend itself further, for logic is itself grounded in metaphysics.
Metaphysics cannot also be overcome by simply allowing a different cognitive standpoint to be adopted, since cognition is itself grounded in metaphysics and in how metaphysics thinks toward Being and truth.
Metaphysics cannot also be overcome by simply willing to overcome metaphysics, since, for Heidegger, willing and all attempts at control and mastery belong to the logical-mathematical thinking that grounds the modern technological turning toward the world and human beings, which is itself metaphysical par excellence. To overcome metaphysics, Heidegger says, to let the will to overcome fade away and disappear.
This means that, for Heidegger, any attempt at overcoming metaphysics must not pass through metaphysics, for if the overcoming of metaphysics is to pass through the metaphysical in its attempts at overcoming, this overcoming will then encounter itself afterward as a mere confirmation of metaphysics and a further entanglement in metaphysics and its systems.
To overcome metaphysics is neither to think meta-metaphysically nor to adopt new doctrines or think new thoughts. Overcoming metaphysics does not take place by joining together metaphysics and what will emerge after carrying out this overcoming. Overcoming occurs only through a leap; a leap through which the other beginning is attained.
Overcoming metaphysics by not passing through the metaphysical happens only by directing this overcoming in its essential questioning toward what was ignored, forgotten, covered over, unthought, unquestioned, and misunderstood in the inception of metaphysics. Through this passing through what the first beginning covered over, neglected, and misinterpreted, an essential transformation of the human being takes place.
Overcoming as Coming to Terms With Metaphysics by Making a Decision
For Heidegger, to overcome metaphysics is not simply to abolish or overthrow it, but rather to come to terms with its limitedness and exhaustion. Overcoming metaphysics does not mean getting rid of it by leaving it behind or forgetting about it; it means disposing of it by having it at our disposal in the sense of being able to freely make a decision concerning its essence and history by thinking differently toward it.
Overcoming metaphysics does not mean pushing it away into forgetfulness, but rather taking it into a new disposition, in which what is already overcome will no longer decide, control, shape, or systematize our thinking toward Being, beings, or the world.
Overcoming metaphysics means attaining freedom from the ordering, categorizing, systemizing, and oppositions of metaphysics whilst retaining that from which freedom is attained as what is overcome.
In other words, what is overcome still remains, but it remains merely as that from which freedom has been attained, as that which has no power to decide or form our thinking toward Being. To overcome metaphysics is not to completely forget about it, but rather to think toward it as what used to hold sway and as what was overcome.
This means that what is now overcome does not recede into forgetfulness or disappearance; what is now overcome remains, but it remains as what is no longer a deciding and dominant factor in thinking, understanding, questioning, or seeing.
There is thus a temporal connectedness between what was overcome and what will emerge because of and through this overcoming. This connectedness allows what will emerge because of and through this overcoming to announce itself in its relation to an unforgotten and non-absent past that remains there as what was overcome, a past that remains there in its being overcome.
What emerges because of and through the overcoming of metaphysics announces and confirms itself as what it is only through understanding that this emergence is itself due to an overcoming of what used to hold sway in its ordering, categorizing, and systemizing.
In other words, what emerges because of and through the overcoming of what held sway in the past sustains its emergence through a knowing-awareness that there is what has been already overcome.
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