In response to the increasingly widespread contemporary assertion concerning the end of philosophy as metaphysics, I show that philosophy has by no means reached its end. I accomplish this by developing the notion of originary metaphysics. Since such metaphysics or thinking can only happen in the present, it does not have a past, and so cannot come to an end. Originary thinking is different from the historiographic kind—the kind that, as I argue, is always already over. Thus, when Heidegger and Deleuze assert that metaphysics has completed itself, or that it needs to be overturned they cannot be referring to originary thinking, but are merely making a statement about its ossified historiographic double.

My notion of originary metaphysics emerges from an engagement with the writings of Parmenides and Plato. Through a close analysis of Parmenides’ Poem I show in what sense intuition constitutes the beginning of originary thought, as well as the way in which this thinking relies on the oneness of everything that is. Next, I consider Plato’s dialogue The Sophist in order to explore the distinction between the philosopher and the sophist. As a result, I establish that the sophist and his or her art of manipulating appearances are absolutely indispensable for the philosopher. The third chapter confronts some historiographic interpretations of Descartes’s mind/body distinction by focusing on his intuition of the cogito. It is by means of this intuition that Descartes radically distances himself from the historiographic philosophy while simultaneously continuing Western philosophical tradition.