The guiding question is about beings, things that are. The grounding question is not about any particular being or all beings, it is about Being, the wonder that there is anything at all. Heidegger's claim is that the grounding question of Being became lost as the focus was narrowed and guided by the question of beings. — Fooloso4

I'll add to that:

Heidegger's philosophy is meta-metaphysics or he questions what is metaphysics in itself? General metaphysics is ontology i.e. it tries to define the ultimate Being of beings. It describes the basic structures of various beings. Heidegger now argues that all previous metaphysics has been pursued "naively" i.e. philosophers has commenced to think ontology without being aware of their own basic situation. It is overlooked that ontology arises out of a already functional world which already has its understanding of being. There is a basic substrate within which all thinking already operates, which it always presumes and which can't be ignored or abstracted. Heidegger calls his meta-metaphysics or meta-ontology fundamental ontology and which investigates the basic, already and always existing, "ontology" as the prevailing understanding of Being. This means that there is always already an understanding of Being prior any conceptual explications or constructions of ontologies. Heidegger will explicate the already existing ontology (of our understanding of being) instead of constructing a new ontology from his head, so to speak. Heidegger's explication leads him to find temporality as the "sense" of the Being in our basic understanding of Being. Being of the beings means how the beings are related or structured so that they can appear to us a s something. It is apriori structure. On the other hand, the sense of the Being is the peculiar temporal "regard" with regard to which the structuration or Being happens. The building or formation of Being-structures can be guided by, for example, "presencing" (e.g. logical world view) or "historicizing" which mean that they have different senses, they structurize or build the world differently. It could be said that there is two levels of "with regard to" (in relation to, in terms of): beings or concrete entities are understood with regard to their Being and Being is understood with regard to its temporal sense.

Heidegger explicates the metaphysics of our understanding of Being or metaphysics of Dasein/existence (first level) and within which the temporal character of metaphysics as such becomes visible i.e. the critique of former trad. metaphysics becomes possible (second level). I think this, as a rough exposition, is the very basic framework of Heidegger's philosophy.

All the above shows that the connections of Heidegger's philosophy with the Nazism are extremely weak!

I don't understand what Heidegger means by going beyond Metaphysics but the following is how he describes its beginning and Nietzsche as the end:

What are the decisive fundamental positions of the commencement (of Greek thought)? In other words, what sorts of answers are given to the as yet undeveloped guiding question, the question as to what being is?

The one answer-roughly speaking, it is the answer of Parmenides-tells us that being is. An odd sort of answer, no doubt, yet a very deep one, since that very response determines for the first time and for all thinkers to come, including Nietzsche, the meaning of is and Being - permanence and presence, that is, the eternal present.

The other answer-roughly speaking, that of Heraclitus-tells us that being becomes. The being is in being by virtue of its permanent becoming, its self-unfolding and eventual dissolution.

To what extent is Nietzsche's thinking the end? That is to say, how does it stretch back to both these fundamental determinations of being in such a way that they come to interlock? Precisely to the extent that Nietzsche argues that being is as fixated, as permanent; and that it is in perpetual creation and destruction. Yet being is both of these, not in an extrinsic way, as one beside another; rather, being is in its very ground perpetual creation (Becoming), while as creation it needs what is fixed. Creation needs what is fixed, first, in order to overcome it, and second, in order to have something that has yet to be fixated, something that enables the creative to advance beyond itself and be transfigured. The essence of being is Becoming, but what becomes is and has Being only in creative transfiguration. What is and what becomes are fused in the fundamental thought that what becomes is inasmuch as in creation it becomes being and is becoming. But such becoming-a-being becomes a being that comes-to-be, and does so in the perpetual transformation of what has become firmly fixed and intractable to something made firm in a liberating transfiguration. — ibid. page 200

↪Janus
I don't understand what Heidegger means by going beyond Metaphysics — Paine

Heidegger explicates the metaphysics of our understanding of Being or metaphysics of Dasein/existence (first level) and within which the temporal character of metaphysics as such becomes visible i.e. the critique of former trad. metaphysics becomes possible (second level). I think this, as a rough exposition, is the very basic framework of Heidegger's philosophy — waarala

There are those, such as Derrida, who argued that Heidegger hadn’t managed to go beyond traditional metaphysics with his approach, but Heidegger himself believed that what he was doing with his fundamental ontology no longer fell within the category of traditional metaphysics but instead inquired into the very ground of metaphysics itself. In What is Thinking, he wrote:

“… all metaphysics leaves something essential unthought: its own ground and foundation. This is the ground on which we have to say that we are not yet truly thinking as long as we think only metaphysically.
The question *Being and Time" points to what is unthought in all metaphysics. Metaphysics consists of this unthought matter; what is unthought in metaphysics is therefore not a defect of metaphysics. Still less may we declare metaphysics to be false, or even reject it as a wrong turn, a mistake, on the grounds that it rests upon this unthought matter.”

Heidegger's influence on progressive theology is strong. Tillich and God as the ground of being is an obvious example.

Hart's "surprise" seems contrived.

↪Tom Storm

Heidegger's influence on progressive theology is strong. Tillich and God as the ground of being is an obvious example.

Hart's "surprise" seems contrived. — Fooloso4

Heidegger’s influence on atheists has been equally strong, which has led to constant battles between theological and atheistic interpretations of his work. Concerning Hart’s surprise that there is anything at all, it is echoed by Heidegger in What is Metaphysics. We must allow ourselves to be surprised and astonished by beings.

“Philosophy gets under way only by a peculiar insertion of our own existence into the fundamental possibilities of Dasein as a whole. For this insertion it is of decisive importance, first, that we allow space for beings as a whole; second, that we release ourselves into the nothing, which is to say, that we liberate ourselves from those idols everyone has and to which he is wont to go cringing; and finally, that we let the sweep of our suspense take its full course, so that it swings back into the basic question of metaphysics which the nothing itself compels: ‘Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing.”(WIM)

“Transposed into the possible, man must constantly be mistaken concerning what is actual. And only because he is thus mistaken and transposed can he become seized by terror. And only where there is the perilousness of being seized by terror do we find the bliss of astonishment -being torn away in that wakeful manner that is the breath of all philosophizing.” (Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics)

Coming outside of philosophy, I find the notion of being fairly uninteresting. No doubt there is rigorous and serious scholarship behind Heidegger's work, but it often sounds like high end bong talk — Tom Storm

Given your involvement with psychotherapy, you may be interested in how Heidegger’s work is being applied in cognitive approaches to affectivity. There is no contemporary philosopher who has delved into the nature of affect, feeling, mood and emotion more deeply than Heidegger. Check out this paper from Matthew Ratcliffe:

https://www.academia.edu/458222/Heideggers_Attunement_and_the_Neuropsychology_of_Emotion

or this:

https://www.academia.edu/458309/Why_Mood_Matters

There are those, such as Derrida, who argued that Heidegger hadn’t managed to escape metaphysics with his approach, but Heidegger himself believed that what he was doing with his fundamental ontology no longer fell within the category of a metaphysics but instead inquired into the very ground of metaphysics itself. — Joshs

Heidegger of BT agreed with Kant that we can't avoid metaphysics. Human beings or their thinking/world view is inescapably metaphysical. What is required is a new, critical metaphysics. For Derrida metaphysics is much more negative phenomenon in its strict oppositions etc. We have to be much more cautious with regard to all possible metaphysical features that occupy our thinking and behavior. Derrida is also skeptical towards all "eidetic reductions" etc. found in phenomenological method. For Heidegger it seems to be much more natural to seek and speak about what something really is i.e. about "essences" (Wesen in German and which has not the connotation of "essentia").

Heidegger of BT agreed with Kant that we can't avoid metaphysics. Human beings or their thinking/world view is inescapably metaphysical. What is required is a new, critical metaphysics — waarala

I like the way the I.E.P. explains Heidegger’s relation to metaphysics:

“Metaphysics cannot be rejected, canceled or denied, but it can be overcome by demonstrating its nihilism. In Heidegger’s use of the term, “nihilism” has a very specific meaning. It refers to the forgetfulness of being. What remains unquestioned and forgotten in metaphysics is Being; hence, it is nihilistic.”

By not understanding, I mean specifically the questioning that Heidegger says is most difficult. In the passage I quoted above:

Thinking Being, will to power, as eternal return, thinking the most difficult thought of philosophy, means thinking Being as Time. Nietzsche thinks that thought but does not think it as the question of Being and Time. Plato and Aristotle also think that thought when they conceive Being as ousia (presence), but just as little as Nietzsche do they think it as a question.
If we do ask the question, we do not mean to suggest that we are cleverer than both Nietzsche and Western philosophy, which Nietzsche "only" thinks to its end. We know that the most difficult thought of philosophy has only become more difficult, that the peak of the meditation has not yet been conquered and perhaps not yet even discovered at all. — Heidegger, Lectures on Nietzsche, Vol 1, page 20e

The limit of metaphysics is found by going past where Nietzsche could go no further. Heidegger is tasking the reader with grasping that end. Otherwise, taking the limit as a given would be to repeat:

Plato and Aristotle also think that thought when they conceive Being as ousia (presence), but just as little as Nietzsche do they think it as a question.

like the way the I.E.P. explains Heidegger’s relation to metaphysics: — Joshs

Heidegger has to have Nietzsche's metaphysics (or the latest development of metaphysics) here in mind, he never referred to Aristotle or Hegel as nihilists.

I think it would be more accurate if he said that this is how he thinks they thought that thought. But I think he would think that I am not thinking historically:

...until philosophy is forced to think historically-in a still more essential and original sense of that word-taking its own most grounding question as its point of departure. (186) — Fooloso4

It seems that the questioning in that direction is over for Heidegger.

Has a scholar who did much to pull apart the veil of Scholastic interpretation of Greek thinkers hidden them behind another?

Has a scholar who did much to pull apart the veil of Scholastic interpretation of Greek thinkers hidden them behind another? — Paine

Good question. Heidegger combines an insightful and penetrating commentary with a presentation of earlier thinkers that is as much a misrepresentation as it is a re-presentation. Take his claim that Plato and Aristotle conceive Being as ousia (presence).

Heidegger has to have Nietzsche's metaphysics (or the latest development of metaphysics) here in mind, he never referred to Aristotle or Hegel as nihilists. — waarala

In ‘The Word of Nietzsche’, Heidegger says that the thinking of Being as a value is what characterizes Western metaphysics from Aristotle through Nietzsche.

“Nietzsche as a metaphysical thinker preserves a closeness to Aristotle.

“…if the thinking that thinks everything in terms of values is
nihilism when thought in relation to Being itself, then even
Nietzsche's own experience of nihilism, i.e., that it is the devalu­ing of the highest values, is after all a nihilistic one.”

. Heidegger combines an insightful and penetrating commentary with a presentation of earlier thinkers that is as much a misrepresentation as it is a re-presentation. Take his claim that Plato and Aristotle conceive Being as ousia (presence). — Fooloso4

He’s far from the only contemporary philosopher who believes Plato led Western thinking on the path of truth as objective representation.

Ousia does not mean presence, presence does not mean objective representation, and objective presentation does not mean ousia.

There is no contemporary philosopher who has delved into the nature of affect, feeling, mood and emotion more deeply than Heidegger. Check out this paper from Matthew Ratcliffe: — Joshs

I'll check it out and thanks but I suspect it will be too impenetrable for me. :up:

Curiously, I'm catching a hint of conflation of a particular being or all beings with Being. — ucarr

To me this sounds like a description of a being, a reflexive being. And, moreover, this particular being is time. — ucarr

The question of Being first proceeds by way of beings - "the Being of beings". But even when the question is guided by a focus on a particular being, there is beneath it the question of what it is to be, what it means to say something is.

thinking Being as Time — Heidegger, Lectures on Nietzsche, Vol 1, page 20e

is not to think of Being as something in time.

Later there is a shift from beings, from what is present to presencing, to Being as the event of coming into and enduring of what comes to presence in time. The will to power and the eternal return are not beings, but that through which and by which what comes to be comes to be.

. The will to power and the eternal return are not beings, but that through which and by which what comes to be comes to be — Fooloso4

They are still beings in Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche. Will to power is a value-positing being. The Being of the eternal return is ‘in time’ rather than temporal in Heidegger’s sense.

The question of Being proceeds by way of beings - "the Being of beings". — Fooloso4

Answering this question leads to: extrapolation from members of a set to an axiom of the set?

thinking Being as Time — Heidegger, Lectures on Nietzsche, Vol 1, page 20e

is not to think of Being as something in time. — Fooloso4

Being is a blood brother to moebius-strip_time-loop?

Time alone penetrates presence, albeit reflexively towards the complex surface of Sein und Zeit? (The complex surface of Sein und Zeit ⇒ Arthur C. Clarke’s obelisk?) Sein und Zeit is the gravity well that sources our phenomenal-empirical universe and answers the question: Why is there not nothing? with Why there is not nothing?

The will to power and the eternal return are not beings... — Fooloso4

Genesis and the moebius-strip_time-loop are not beings but, instead, metaphysical mediums?

...but that through which and by which what comes to be comes to be. — Fooloso4

Temporality is an essential medium of dimensional extension.

Reflexivity is an essential medium of presence_consciousness (as contrasted with position_existence)?

They are still beings in Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche. — Joshs

[Edit; I misread this as "there are still beings". They are not still beings.]

Will to power is a value-positing being. — Joshs

Will to power is a force. It is not a being that resides in beings.

The Being of the eternal return is ‘in time’ rather than temporal in Heidegger’s sense. — Joshs

Heidegger does not say the Being of the eternal return, he says:

Thinking Being, will to power, as eternal return ... means thinking Being as Time.

(20)

Thinking Being as eternal return is not to think the Being of the eternal return.

He says "as time" not in time.

The eternal return is not in time, what is in time is what eternally returns.

Have you by chance looked into Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death ? Its core is an 'existentialized' psychoanalysis (Rank and Kierkegaard most explicitly.) The terror of being a dying animal is foregrounded, along with various responses to that terror. While Heidegger is only mentioned in passing, it's hard not to think of a certain version of Heidegger in which facing death heroically is at the center.

Deathbed interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmD9og3ZTQ

Relevant to Heidegger and death: "What bothered me was I was living by delegated powers."

The terror of being a dying animal is foregrounded, along with various responses to that terror. — green flag

Do you think this terror is ubiquitous?

Do you think this terror is ubiquitous? — Tom Storm

I think most of us don't feel this terror very often. I do find it plausible though that 'growing up' is, among other things, a taming of this terror. Is childhood a largely forgotten magical world full of monsters and goddesses? I sort of remember it that way.

Will to power is a force. It is not a being that resides in beings — Fooloso4

For Heidegger, will to power, whether you want to call it a force , value-positing or that which makes beings possible, is that which persists as presence.

“Since long ago, that which is present has been regarded as what is.” “To modern metaphysics, the Being of beings appears as will.”

In other words , for modern metaphysics, including Nietzsche’s will to power, will is that which is present to itself as what is.

“Since in all metaphysics from the beginning of Western thought, Being means being present, Being, if it is to be thought in the highest instance, must be thought as pure presence, that is, as the presence that persists, the abiding present, the steadily standing "now."
“Among the long established predicates of primal being are "eternity and independence of time. Eternal will does not mean only a will that lasts eternally: it says that will is primal being only when it is eternal as will….The primal being of beings is the will, as the eternally recurrent willing of the eternal recurrence of the same. The eternal recurrence of the same is the supreme triumph of the metaphysics of the will that eternally wills its own willing.”

Thinking Being as eternal return is not to think the Being of the eternal return.

He says "as time" not in time.

The eternal return is not in time, what is in time is what eternally returns. — Fooloso4

That’s true. What is in time is what recurs in the eternal return. Only because Nietzsche thinks of time in terms of the traditional metaphysical notion of ‘in-timeless’, the sequence of present nows, can he posit the eternal return as the endless presence ( Being) of the willing of itself.

“…the answer Aristotle gave to the question of the
essential nature of time still governs Nietzsche's idea of
time. What is the situation in regard to time? In being,
present in time at the given moment is only that narrow
ridge of the momentary fugitive "now," rising out of the
"not yet now'' and falling away into the "no longer now."

I think most of us don't feel this terror very often. — green flag

Yes, it seems absent amongst my social groups and me personally. Of course people might 'cheat' and say that it's an unconscious fear that animates all aspects of our lives, etc.

Is childhood a largely forgotten magical world full of monsters and queens ? — green flag

Could be.

extrapolation from members of a set to an axiom of the set? — ucarr

Beings are not members of a set "Being".

Being is a blood brother to moebius-strip_time-loop? — ucarr

I think it best to try and understand a philosopher on his own terms. See the chapter in in Nietzsche's Zarathustra "The Riddle and the Vision".

I decided to start a new thread.

Of course people might 'cheat' and say that it's an unconscious fear that animates all aspects of our lives, etc. — Tom Storm

Right. I think Becker's book is brilliant on the whole, but it lacks a sense of humor. I do think that humans tend to seek contact with some form of immortality. In other words, transcending the 'dying' (vulnerable) animal body is something like a general description of culture. On a very simple level, this is learning not to soil yourself at school. On higher levels, it's getting something world-historical named after you.

In my view, there is no genuine escape from the flames of time, and perhaps we've evolved to seek status in our own generation, which might involve an anticipated future value calculation, etc.

I tend to find death-facing machismo a significant ingredient in the early Heidegger. 'Comforting' philosophy, including a safe/technical/theoretical is understood as a 'sinful' indulgence or cowardly escapism. Much more can be said, but is this one way to get a grip on his basic heroic pose ? And is this itself a useful way to approach a thinker ? As a kind of knight whose sword is pointed at a complementary dragon?

For Heidegger, will to power, whether you want to call it a force , value-positing or try at which makes beings possible, is that which persists as presence. — Joshs

Here we confront the problem
I mentioned earlier, as to when Heidegger is representing the thoughts of someone else and when he is misrepresenting or going beyond.

“To modern metaphysics, the Being of beings appears as will.” — Joshs

I assume you are quoting Heidegger. The question is: is this true? Does modern metaphysics even address the Being of beings? What, for example, does Hegel say about will that can be regarded as meaning the Being of beings?

“Since long ago, that which is present has been regarded as what is.”
— Joshs

Who are you quoting and from where? It is always helpful to discuss things in context. — Fooloso4

That’s Heidegger in What is Thinking.

“To modern metaphysics, the Being of beings appears as will.”
— Joshs

I assume you are quoting Heidegger. The question is: is this true? Does modern metaphysics even address the Being of beings? What, for example, does Hegel say about will that can be regarded as meaning the Being of beings? — Fooloso4

Yes, that’s Heidegger again from WIT. The Being of beings is the question of the essence or ground of beings. We can find attempts to answer the question of the ground of all that is by all the major philosophers. What unites all these attempts as metaphysical is their defining of this ultimate ground as some sort of abiding presence.