The Metaphysics of German Idealism. Martin Heidegger

this distinction from “without”; yet at the same time we shall attempt to think beyond this distinction into the realm in which the confrontation with Schelling and metaphysics in general is carried out.

      The preliminary reflection is organized into four parts:

      Chapter 1: the conceptual-historical elucidation of “ground” and “existence.”

      Chapter 2: the root of this distinction (the point of view according to which the distinguished are distinguished).

      Chapter 3: the inner necessity of the distinction (from which the distinguishing {Unter-scheiden} emerges); (“the principle of opposition,” “negativity”; subjectivity).

      Chapter 4: the essence of the distinction {Unterscheidung} and the particular formulations of the difference {Unterschied} in Schelling (not as something set forth in representation and thought, but the representing itself as deliberate self-dividing {Sich-Scheiden}; counter-turning, circle).

      Yet the preliminary reflection nevertheless has the core section in view, indeed with the aim of displacing the interpretation of the treatise straightaway into the realm where everything is decided, and within which the individual steps are alone comprehensible. At the same time, however, the preliminary reflection looks beyond this into the possibility and necessity of an entirely different way of questioning (the question of being). The latter must, however, emerge where the questioning of metaphysics – and Schelling’s questioning in particular – have their impetus and ultimate fulfillment, even though there is no living and developed knowledge of it.

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      1 1. On an accompanying page, Heidegger wrote out the excerpt: “The philosophy of nature of our time has first advanced in science the distinction between essence insofar as it exists and essence insofar as it is merely the ground of existence” (357).

      2 2. Lecture in the Freiburg Kränzchen on 7 June 1941 (publication planned for the third division {TN: now in vol. 80.2} of the Collected Works).