4. Guiding Question and Fundamental Question

The guiding question follows the thread of νοῦς – λόγος – κατηγορία; ratio – intellectus – thinking – judgment; thus, being and thinking.

The fundamental question, by contrast: Being and Time. The “and” [has] different meanings in each case, even in the formula. In the guiding question, it is simply a supplementary mention of the guiding thread; in the fundamental question, however, it is the task of the original entry into the truth for Being.

Difficulty: So, in the fundamental question of Being and Time, is “thinking” excluded? A distinction must be made: 1. “thinking” as determinative of the pre-grip in philosophizing, 2. “thinking” as the act of philosophical reflection.

(2) can and must exist without (1) prevailing. Cf. On the Event, Introduction.²

A distinction must be made: 1. whether thinking determines being-ness as such as thought — categorization (κατηγορία), 2. or whether thinking merely carries out the interpretation in such a way that what being-ness is interpreted as is by no means determined by thinking as thought or categorization.

Overcoming the central question—for which “thinking” serves as a guide (cf. the introduction to Descartes’s fundamental metaphysical position)— does not mean replacing thinking as a guide with “time”; rather, the question itself is, at its core, a different and more fundamental one. It is not the beingness of the being that is questioned, but the truth of Being; it is not the being that is the object of inquiry, but Being.

² Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy. (On the Event). Complete Works, Vol. 65, edited by F.-W. von Herrmann. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1989, ³2003, p. 3 ff.