Thinking in the between with Heidegger and Plato

In this essay, I attempt first to clarify what non-metaphysical thinking as a thinking "in the Between" might mean for Heidegger, as presented in his Beitrage zur Philosophie. After determining this as the proper response to the self-concealment Heidegger sees as grounding the appearing of beings, I then attempt to show that the elenctic method of Socrates in Plato's early dialogues exhibits something like the same dynamic. That is, Socrates attempts to situate himself and his interlocutors in a space defined both by the always prior appearance of what virtue is' to human beings and by the inevitable obscurity or withdrawal in that very appearing. In so doing, I hope to indicate that something as simple and familiar as Socratic elenctic conversation, although a relic of our tradition, might if properly understood provide us today with one model for how thinking could proceed after Heidegger's critique of metaphysics.