of thought, will get us nowhere. Furthermore, all worldview theories stand completely outside of philosophy, for they can exist only by denying that beyng is worthy of question. By honoring this question-worthiness, philosophy possesses its own dignity, one that cannot be derived from elsewhere and cannot be calculated. All decisions regarding philosophy's dealings arise from the preservation of this dignity and as preservations of this dignity. In the realm of what is most worthy of question, however, these dealings can only constitute a unique questioning. If in any of its hidden ages, then it is in the transition to the other beginning that philosophy, in the clarity of its knowledge, must come to a decision regarding its own essence.
The "other beginning" of thought is so named not because it is simply different in form from all other previous philosophies but because it must be the only other beginning arising in relation to the one and only first beginning. From this assignment of the first and the other beginning to each other, the character of thoughtful meditation in the transition is also already determined. Transitional thinking accomplishes the grounding projection of the truth of beyng as historical meditation. History is thereby not the object and sphere of a spectating but is that which first awakens and brings about thoughtful questioning as the site of the decisions of history. In the transition, thought places in dialogue the first having-been of the beyng of truth and the extreme to-come of the truth of beyng and in that dialogue brings to words the hitherto uninterrogated essence of beyng. In the knowledge belonging to transitional thinking, the first beginning remains decisive as the first and yet is indeed overcome as a beginning. For this thinking, the clearest respect paid to the first beginning (a respect which first discloses this beginning in its uniqueness) must be accompanied by the disrespect of the renunciation implicit in another questioning and speaking.
The outline of these "contributions" toward the preparation of the transition is taken from the still-unmastered ground-plan of the historicality of the transition itself:
the resonating
the interplay
the leap
the grounding
the future ones
the last god
This outline is not a series of various considerations on sundry objects; nor is it a step-by-step ascent from the low to the high. It is a preliminary sketch of the temporal-spatial playing field which the history of the transition first creates as its own realm in order to decide,