metaphysics should continue to exist, something which we cannot determine.
Re 2. The other question is related to what we have just said, the question of what might be given to thinking in Appropriation as a task for thought and accordingly what the adequate way of Saying might be. We are not only asking about the form of Saying—about the fact that speaking in propositional statements is inadequate for what is to be said-but, roughly expressed, about the content. In the lecture it was said: "What remains to be said? Only this: Appropriation appropriates." At first this only wards off the manner in which Appropriation is not to be thought. Expressed positively, the question arises: What does Appropriation appropriate? What is appropriated by Appropriation? And: When thinking thinks Appropriation, is it pondering what is appropriated by Appropriation?
Nothing is said about this in the lecture itself which only wants to pave the way to Appropriation. But in other writings of Heidegger's some thought has been given to this.
Thus, at the end of the lecture on Identity3 it is stated what Appropriation appropriates, that is, brings into its own and retains in Appropriation: namely, the belonging together of Being and man. In this belonging together, what belongs together is no longer Being and man, but rather—as appropriated—mortals in the fourfold of world. The lecture "Hölderlin's Earth and Sky" (Hölderlin Jahrbuch 1960, pp. 17 ff.) and the lecture "The Thing" speak in different ways about what is appropriated, about the fourfold. In addition, everything that was said about language as Saying belongs here (On the Way to Language, 1971).
Thus Heidegger has spoken about Appropriation and what it appropriates, although only in a preliminary preparatory way. For this thinking can only be concerned with preparing the entry into Appropriation. The fact that one can only say of Appropriation that Appropriation appropriates does not exclude, but rather includes a whole wealth of what is to be thought in Appropriation itself. All
3. Cf. "The Law of Identity" in Identity and Difference (Tr.)