Metaphysische Grundstellung

Heidegger's name for the structural form a metaphysical position takes within the Leitfrage-history. A Grundstellung is not a "viewpoint" or "doctrine" but the four-fold articulation by which a thinker takes a Stand (stance) within the unasked Leitfrage and so co-determines "den Standort des Menschen im Ganzen des Seienden." The four moments are: (a) the way the thinker asks the Leitfrage; (b) the answer to the Leitfrage; (c) the truth-character of beings as such (presupposed in (a) and (b)); (d) the ground of human Dasein from which the position is taken. Every great Western metaphysics — Plato, Aristotle, the medievals, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche — is a Grundstellung. Nietzsche's, on Heidegger's reading, is the last because the most extreme.

What the Concept Does

  1. Replaces "viewpoint" or "school" with structural-historical placement. A Grundstellung is not a position one takes among others; it is the form in which Western metaphysics articulates itself. The four moments are not features the thinker chooses; they are the joints any metaphysical position must have because of the Leitfrage's structure.

  2. Specifies what makes a metaphysical position foundational. A Grundstellung is fundamental (Grund-) in that it determines the standpoint of human Dasein in the whole of beings. To inhabit a Grundstellung is to live a particular relation to beings as a whole, including oneself.

  3. Provides the diagnostic for Nietzsche's place in metaphysics. Nietzsche's Grundstellung: (a) basic character of beings = will to power; (b) Being of beings as a whole = eternal recurrence of the same; (c) truth = Gerechtigkeit (justice as fitting bestowal); (d) ground of human Dasein = the Übermensch as the type that can think the heaviest thought. Each component is the most extreme answer along its axis; their conjoint extremity is what makes Nietzsche's Grundstellung the last.

  4. Frames the Vollendung. The Vollendung der Metaphysik in Nietzsche is the closing of the Grundstellung-series. Each major metaphysician produced a Grundstellung; Nietzsche's exhausts the Leitfrage's possibilities. This is what "letzter Metaphysiker" means.

What It Rejects

  • Position-doctrine readings. Reading Plato as "idealist," Aristotle as "realist," Nietzsche as "anti-Platonist" misses the structural form each position takes. They are all Grundstellungen within the Leitfrage; their differences are within a unity.
  • History-of-ideas methodology. The four-fold structure is not derived from the texts surveyed; it is derived from the Leitfrage's own form. History-of-ideas treats positions as if they could be inventoried; Grundstellung-analysis treats them as articulations of a single foundational question.
  • Standpunkt-Philosophie. A Grundstellung is not a Standpunkt (standpoint). A Standpunkt is a vantage from which one views the world; a Grundstellung is the form in which one stands within beings as a whole. Heidegger explicitly distinguishes the two (heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i II.21).

Nietzsche's Grundstellung in detail

Heidegger constructs Nietzsche's Grundstellung as follows:

Axis Component Nietzsche
(a) Way of asking the Leitfrage What way? Through the Wertfrage (question of value): what shall hold-as-true for life?
(b) Answer to the Leitfrage What is the basic character of beings? will to power
(b') What is the Being of beings as a whole? eternal recurrence of the same
(c) Truth-character of beings as such What is truth? Gerechtigkeit (justice as fitting bestowal of constancy by will to power)
(d) Ground of human Dasein What is the Mensch from whom the position is taken? The Übermensch — the type that can think the heaviest thought; the willed completion of the Cartesian subiectum via the Leib

This articulation is Heidegger's, not Nietzsche's. Nietzsche does not present his thought in this four-fold; Heidegger constructs it as the underlying structure that Nietzsche's Aphorismen fragmentarily articulate.

Stakes

  • Reading Nietzsche becomes an architectonic task. A Grundstellung must be reconstructed from the Aphorismen; Nietzsche's never appears as a system in his own texts.
  • The four-fold becomes the criterion for any metaphysical position. Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel can all be Grundstellung-analyzed in this form. Heidegger's later texts (e.g., on Leibniz, Kant, Hegel) deploy the structure.
  • The Vollendung is structurally precise. Nietzsche is the letzter Metaphysiker not because he is the last in time but because his Grundstellung exhausts the Leitfrage along all four axes simultaneously.

Open Questions

  • Is the four-fold structure derived from the Leitfrage, or from Heidegger's own reading of the Sein und Zeit analytic of Dasein? Component (d) (ground in human Dasein) seems to import Heidegger's existential analytic into the Grundstellung-form.
  • Do non-Western metaphysical traditions have Grundstellungen in this sense? Heidegger implies the form is uniquely Western; the cross-cultural matter is contested.
  • Can a Grundstellung be performed against metaphysics? I.e., can the post-metaphysical thinker (Heidegger himself) take a Grundstellung? Heidegger's answer seems to be: no — what the post-metaphysical thinker takes is not a Grundstellung but a Wink or Spielraum into the anderer Anfang.
  • Is component (c) — the truth-character — derivable from (b), or is it independent? Heidegger sometimes treats it as presupposed-by-(a-and-b), sometimes as separable.

Connections

  • is the structural form of a position within leitfrage-grundfrage
  • defines what it means to be a metaphysical thinker — see heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i II.21
  • is the analytic frame for friedrich-nietzsche's position as the letzter Metaphysiker
  • grounds the seinsgeschichtlich-frame of seinsgeschichte — each age has a Grundstellung; the series exhausts in Nietzsche
  • is operative in Heidegger's readings of Plato (the idea-Grundstellung), Aristotle (the energeia-Grundstellung), Descartes (subiectum-Grundstellung), Kant (transzendentale Grundstellung), Hegel (Spirit-Grundstellung)
  • is implicitly the architectonic frame of heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i as a whole

Sources

  • heidegger-1961-nietzsche-i — II.21 ("Das Wesen einer metaphysischen Grundstellung. Ihre Möglichkeit in der Geschichte der abendländischen Philosophie") is the central exposition (lines 3528-3608). II.22 ("Nietzsches metaphysische Grundstellung") gives the four-fold for Nietzsche specifically (lines 3610+). The four-fold is operative throughout Nietzsche I and is presupposed by vollendung-der-metaphysik.