Heidegger’s Critique of Metaphysics in Relation to Organization Theory

According to Heidegger, the main question of metaphysics is why is there something rather than nothing? “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”, Heidegger asks. “That is the question.” (Heidegger 1935, p. 31). In other words, why does existence exist?
The second most important of metaphysics, according to Heidegger, is: What does it even mean to say that existence exists? “What do we mean by that?”, writes Heidegger, referring to the proposition that existence exists:

If we consider our question in the whole breadth of what it puts into question, beings as such and as a whole, then it strikes us right away that in the question, we keep ourselves completely removed from every particular, individual being as precisely this or that being. We do mean beings as a whole, but without any particular preference.

In other words, the relevant question is not why this or that specific object exists; it is not why this tree or that rock exists. Those questions are empirical, not philosophical in nature, and they can be given straightforward scientific answers. Rather it is: What does it even mean to say that they exist? What is existence itself?

Heidegger’s point seems to be that even if we knew of each and every entity how it came into existence---even if we had an explanation for the existence of grain of sand and each star---we would still not have an answer to the question ‘why does existence itself exist?’ Having made this purely philosophical point, Heidegger makes a historical point, namely, that metaphysics has thus far (i.e. up to Heidegger’s time) has embodied a failure to see that even if we knew of how each entity in existence came into existence, we would not on that account know what existence itself was.

This last point is Heidegger’s so-called critique of metaphysics. Stated as concisely as possible, Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics is that metaphysicians have been asking why thing exist in the way in which they exist, instead of asking what existence itself is. A consequence of this failure, Heidegger claims, is that metaphysicians don’t know how to answer the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ Moreover, Heidegger claims, because they have failed to distinguish the question ‘what is existence per se?’ from questions concerning specific instances of existence, metaphysicians have made themselves unable to answer the question: Why is there something rather than nothing? In other words, their failure to understand the second main question of metaphysics (what is existence?) has led to a failure to answer the first main question of metaphysics (why does existence exist?). Heidegger’s contention, though not always easy to make out, seems to be that instead of concerning themselves with genuinely philosophical questions, metaphysicians have concerned themselves with para-scientific questions and, consequently, have accepted para-scientific answers to questions that demanded specifically philosophical answers.

In this paper, we will clarify and then evaluate these assertions of Heidegger’s. To this end, we will compare Heidegger’s metaphysical views to those of Plato and

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