INTRODUCTION TOMETAPHYSICS 1117
We encounter beings everywhere; they surround us, carry and control us, enchant
and fulfill us, elevate and disappoint us, but where in all this is the Being of beings, and
what does it consist in? One could answer: this distinction between beings and their
Being may at times have some linguistic importance, perhaps even some meaning; one
can make this distinction in mere thought, that is, in re-presentation and opinion, without
this distinction’s corresponding to anything that is. But even this distinction made only in
thought is questionable; for it remains unclearwhat we are supposed to think under the
name “Being.” Meanwhile, it is enough to be familiar with beings and to secure mastery
over them. Distinguishing Being on top of this is artificial and leads to nothing.
We have already made some remarks about this popular question of what comes
of such distinctions. Let us now simply reflect on our enterprise. We ask, “Why are
there beings at all instead of nothing?” And in this question we apparently restrict our-
selves only to beings and avoid empty brooding about Being. But what are we really
asking? Why beings as such are. We are asking about the ground for the fact that beings
are,and are what they are,and that there is not nothing instead. We are asking at bottom
about Being. But how? We are asking about the Being of beings. We are interrogating
beings in regards to their Being.
But if we persevere in the questioning, we are really already asking ahead,about
Being in regard to its ground, even if this question does not develop and it remains
undecided whether Being itself is not already in itself a ground and ground enough. If
we pose this question about Being as the first question in rank, then should we do so
without knowing how it stands with Being and how Being stands in its distinction from
beings? How are we even supposed to inquire into the ground for the Being of beings,
let alone be able to find it out, if we have not adequately conceived, understood and
grasped Being itself? This enterprise would be just as hopeless as if someone wanted to
explain the cause and ground of a fire and declared that he need not bother with the
course of the fire or the investigation of its scene.
So it turns out that the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”
forces us to the prior question: “How does it stand with Being?”
We are now asking about something that we hardly grasp, something that is now
no more than the sound of a word for us and that puts us in danger of falling victim to the
mere idolization of words in our further questioning. So it is all the more necessary for us
to get clear from the outset about how it stands for us at present with Being and with our
understanding of Being. Here it is important above all to impress on our experience again
and again the fact that we are not able to lay hold of the Beingof beings directly and
expressly, neither by way of beings, nor in beings—nor anywhere else at all.
A few examples should help. Over there, on the other side of the street, stands the
high school building. A being. We can scour every side of the building from the outside,
roam through the inside from basement to attic, and note everything that can be found
there: hallways, stairs, classrooms, and their furnishings. Everywhere we find beings,
and in a very definite order. Where now is the Being of this high school? It is,after all.
The building is.The Being of this being belongs to it if anything does, and nevertheless
we do not find this Being within the being.
Moreover, Being does not consist in our observing beings. The building stands
there even if we do not observe it. We can come across it only because it already is. In
addition, the Being of this building does not at all seem to be identical for everybody.
For us, as observers or passers-by, it is not what it is for the students who sit inside, not
just because they see it only from the inside but because for them this building really is
what it is and how it is. One can, as it were, smell the Being of such buildings, and often