4. The criterion: Which being most purely and most immediately yields beingness, and does so in such a way that it remains the standard for the interpretation of all being.

For Plato: τέχνη, πρᾶγμα, εἶδος, ὕλη, φύσις.

For Descartes: e.g., mathesis: the unity of me esse and cogitare as a mathematical primordial relation, the fundamental axiom of all knowledge — esse = certum esse.

Für Kant: “Nature,” Newton.

For Hegel: Absolute knowledge — “Idea.”

For Nietzsche: art, understood from the artist’s perspective, as that which creates being; not readily experienceable or knowable by everyone.

Already, in this sense, a reference to the one who measures and sets the standard, i.e., the questioner.

5. The questioner and his guide: Man; even as one who asks, he asks in the guiding question directly about Being as a whole and thus, at the same time, about himself: Who is man? But this question already has its answer here in advance through the guiding experience of Being as a whole. [The guiding principle is] linked to the premise (4): λόγος, thought, νοῦς. animal rationale —the αὐτό of νοεῖν and εἶναι. The answer to this question about the questioner intervenes in the determination of the vantage point.

6. The location (from 4 and 5) of the questioner: (Where? Whether within Being as a whole or outside it; whether in the midst of it.) Each time: “space” — literal or figurative. Location is determined in part by the manner, interpretation, and experience of standing, i.e., by 5.

7. The inclusion of the questioner in what is being questioned and, through this, into it; (1<→5), because the questioner is not simply present among other beings, but stands as a questioner ἀντί and thus simultaneously enters into the opposite; but — this varies depending on the extent to which this is specifically asked.

8. The repercussion: insofar as inclusion belongs to the structure, it lies at the same time in the fact that from the beingness of the being (2, 3) the beingness of the questioner and his position is also determined;