In Being and Time , Heidegger announced the Task of Destroying the History of Ontology in order to free what had remained unthought in Western metaphysics. The unpublished part of that work was to be titled Basic Features of a Phenomenological Destruction of the History of Ontology. According to the Guiding Thread of the Problem of Temporality. This latest work in the Reiner Schürmann Selected Writings and Lecture Notes series aims to carry out Heideggers plan. The destruction, or, as it is later called, the deconstruction of metaphysics, has a negative sidethe peeling off, or the archeology, of metaphysical history by means of the guiding thread of the question of Beingand a positive sideretrieval of the original experience of Being in ancient Greek philosophy. The destruction has no other intent than to win back the original experience of metaphysics through a deconstruction of those conceptions which have become current and empty. The purpose of taking to pieces the fabric of Western metaphysics is to show how at each important stage the question of the meaning of Being has not only remained unattended to or inadequately raised, but that it has become quite forgotten in spite of all our interest in 'metaphysics'.

Reiner Schürmann wurde 1941 in Amsterdam geboren und verbrachte seine Kindheit und Jugend in Krefeld. Ab 1960 studierte er Philosophie in München, unterbrochen durch einen Aufenthalt in einem israelischen Kibbuz. 1961 trat er als Novize bei den Dominikanern in Frankreich ein und studierte von 1962-69 Theologie im Saulchoir, Essonne, bei Paris, unterbrochen durch einen Studienaufenthalt in Freiburg i. Br. bei Heidegger. 1970 wurde er zum Dominikanerpriester ordiniert, verließ den Orden 1975 jedoch wieder. Seit den frühen siebziger Jahren lebte Schürmann in den USA und wurde 1975 von Hannah Arendt und Hans Jonas an die New School for Social Research in New York berufen. 1993 starb Reiner Schürmann an Aids. Sein umfangreiches philosophisches Werk verfasste Schürmann in französischer Sprache.