The problem for Heidegger is this: in the metaphysical tradition, being is understood out of beings (beings as such), whereas Heidegger tries to think being as such. When Heidegger, at the same time, states that being has to establish itself in a being, then the question arises as to how this established being is differentiated from the metaphysically understood beingness of beings (i.e., ontological indifference).

Our discussion of Heidegger’s destructed concept of the gestalt in the previous sections made clear that it cannot be understood as the beingness of beings. And yet, later Heidegger came to see that he could not withdraw his concept of the gestalt completely from this tradition, because it is inherently related to beings and thinks being out of beings. For instance, when Heidegger in his Rectorial Address is talking about the task before the Germans of finding their identity and when this identity can be found in a gestalt of the German people, then it is not clear how this gestalt is differentiated from an onto-typology, or from the beingness (gestalt) of beings (Germans). As long as the truth of being has to establish itself in a gestalt, being as such is not only thought of in relation with beings, but also out of beings, and we are then incapable of differentiating it from the beingness of beings. That is why Heidegger, in his Contributions, finally rejects the establishment of the truth in a gestalt and attempts to think the truth of being without beings: “Mindfulness transports the man of the future into that ‘in-between’ in which he belongs to being and yet, amidst beings, remains a stranger.” Because the concept of the gestalt is, according to Heidegger, inherently bound up with beings, the departure of establishment implies also the departure of the gestalt.

P. 99

¶ 9:28 PM