For some time now it has been said that philosophy as metaphysics is at an end. From Ayer and Carnap to Heidegger and Derrida the "end of metaphysics' has been at least one of the primary questions of "modern" philosophy and arguably the question of philosophy in the twentieth century on both sides of the professional divide, informing the questions of language, temporality and other topics. It has also been suggested that the claim regarding the "end of metaphysics' is modern philosophy's 'supreme fiction", the strategy that constitutes its relation to prior traditions, enabling it to constantly renew itself.¹