To what extent was Heidegger right in

Nietzsche was one of the most prominent figures of the 20th century. First considered as an artist, he was then first treated as a philosopher by Heidegger. Nietzsche is often said to represent a turning point in modern philosophy, the culmination but also the end of western philosophy. Can then Nietzsche be seen as the first post-modern philosopher? To what extent does he represent the post-modern values? Is he the first post-modern or the last modern man? The pessimistic view of Nietzsche does not allow much opening for a new era, compared to Heidegger who tried to find a new beginning of metaphysics in presocratic views. But the new philosophers tend to focus on the deconstruction of human reason and reshape ontology in the light of human sciences. Introduction Metaphysics in its initial sense – as the title of Aristotle's book – means “what comes after the issue of physics”, that is the issue which comes after the issues treated in Physics. This meaning of metaphysics has changed in the Middle Ages: it was made to convey “what is beyond the physical”. Metaphysical tradition goes back to Plato and has been understood as an attempt to search the Good and Truth beyond the physical world. The Platonic good is superior to being. We can define metaphysics as an attempt to provide an explanation of the fundamental nature of reality. Ontology works on the nature of being, and the meaning of being. Cosmology provides an explanation on the structure of reality. Some authors found metaphysics in Descartes' “Sum ergo cogito: cogito ergo sum” who finds the foundation of metaphysics in ego. For him, metaphysics is based on the subject, the thinking subject. In history, the foundation changed with the death of God which meant at the same time the death of the foundation of metaphysics. In that sense, Nietzsche can be considered the last metaphysical thinker because his ideas about “the death of God”, “beyond good and evil”, nihilism and “the eternal return” represent the closure of metaphysics. This new understanding of metaphysics was mainly influenced by the discovery of Buddhism and Asian philosophers by Western thinkers, and is seen by many modern philosophers as the completion of metaphysics. But the “death of God” was rather the death of the Christian God, as Nietzsche described Christianity and alcohol as the two great means of corruption. Heidegger who was the first to treat Nietzsche as a philosopher tried to rethink metaphysics by asking “is there something that has been forgotten or repressed?”