What is metaphysics?

pp. 194-207

in: William Richardson, Heidegger, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1963

Abstract

The year 1929 saw, besides the publication of KM and WG, Heidegger's accession to the chair of philosophy at the University of Freiburg, left vacant by Husserl's retirement, a new distinction that furnished the occasion on July 24 for the inaugural lecture, "What is Metaphysics?" (WM).¹ Here Heidegger crystallizes once more the essential elements of the thought so carefully elaborated in SZ, with the result that in a genuine sense we may say that WM offers no doctrine of importance that is new. And yet there is a profound difference of perspective from that of SZ, which must be noted and emphatically stressed, if we are to discern the evolution that already has begun.