This 1929 lecture begins by saying this question will be answered through a metaphysical inquiry. For Heidegger every metaphyscial question is always the whole, every metaphysical question encompasses all metaphyscial problems. This bold! Further, metaphysical problems involve the presence of a questioner one who is 'placed in question' (p. 93)

Heidegger on the one hand presents the inquiry into the nothing as an elucidation of metaphysical inquiry, on the other hand however, one gets the impression that there is a priveledging of 'nothing' in this type of inquiry. (p. 107) Hence in two separate instances Heidegger talks of the previous neglect of nothing, by science (which wants to 'dismiss the nothing with a lordly wave of the hand' and again even by a long history of metaphysicians who proclaim ex nihilo nihil fit (from nothing nothing comes to be). Heidegger says 'nothing' is the counterpoint to being proper. In fact he seeks to directly implicate being and nothing, in the fashion of Hegel, but in relation to the being of beings. The nothing seems to allow access to being for Heidegger.