75
§44 [94-95]


merely the last scions of the process by which philosophy incurs the loss of its essence and degenerates into the crudest ambiguity, because what philosophy seems to be can no longer unequivocally be such for the one who knows. Therefore all attempts to say what the truth of beyng is not must have become reconciled to the fact that they at most are supplying new nourishment to the ignorant obstinacy for further misinterpretation, in case such clarifications are of the belief that distorted philosophy could be transformed into philosophy by means of instruction. Nevertheless, meditation (as a historical meditation) on what the truth of beyng is not is indeed essential because it can help to make more transparent the basic movements in the basic metaphysical positions of Western thinking and make more striking the concealment of the history of being.

To be sure, all of this implies that every rejection of philosophical bustle possesses its necessity (in the genuine sense of the word) only if it has recognized that meditation on the truth of beyng contains a transformation from thinking to thoughtfulness, a transformation which obviously cannot be brought about by moral directives but, rather, must be pre-transformed and indeed in the public domain of what is invisible and makes no clamor.

Why is the truth of beyng not an addition to beyng or framework for it and also not its presupposition but, instead, the innermost essence of beyng itself?

The reason is that the essence of beyng essentially occurs in the appropriation of de-cision. But how do we know that? We do not know it, but we question into it and through such questioning open up the site of beyng, perhaps even a site demanded by beyng, in case the essence of beyng should be refusal, to which the all-too-insufficient questioning remains the only fitting nearness.

In this way then, for a long time to come all creating that grounds Da-sein (and only such creating, not the everyday, constant pursuit of organizing beings) must awaken the truth of beyng as question and plight, through the most decisive paths and in changing approaches which are apparently unknown to one another and unconnected. Such creating must make ready for the stillness of beyng but also must be decisively against every attempt (in the mere desire to turn back, even if to the "most valuable" traditions) to confuse and weaken the unrelenting urgency in the plight of meditation.

Knowledge of the constant mindfulness of what is rare belongs to the stewardship for beyng, and the essence of beyng shines forth as the truth itself in the obscurity of the very glowing of that truth.

The truth of beyng is the beyng of truth—said in this way, it sounds like an artificial and forced reversal and, at most, like a seduction to


Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event) (GA 65) by Martin Heidegger