THE WAY BACK INTO THE GROUND OF METAPHYSICS

[195] Descartes, writing to Picot, who translated the Principia Philosophiae into French, observed: “Ainsi toute la Philosophic est comme un arbre, dont les racines sont la Métaphysique, le tronc est la Physique, et les branches qui sortent de ce tronc sont toutes les autres sciences…” [Thus the whole of philosophy is like a tree: the roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches that issue from the trunk are all the other sciences…] (Opp. ed. Ad. et Ta. IX, 14).

Staying with this image, we ask: In what soil do the roots of the tree of philosophy take hold? Out of what ground do the roots, and thereby the whole tree, receive their nourishing juices and strength? What element, concealed in the ground and soil, enters and lives in the roots that support and nourish the tree? What is the basis and element of the essence of metaphysics? What is metaphysics, viewed from its ground? What is metaphysics itself, at bottom?

Metaphysics thinks beings as beings. Wherever the question is asked what beings are, beings as such are in sight. Metaphysical representation owes this sight to the light of Being. The light itself, i.e., that which such thinking experiences as light, no longer comes within the range of meta-physical thinking; for metaphysics always represents beings only as beings.