e.g., beingness as substantia, humanity, soul, “substance.”

9. The Turn: this means that within the structure as such, the unfolded elements are not simply superimposed or layered upon one another, but rather determine one another through reciprocal relations; and that within the entire structure there is essentially a turn (a reversal of the relation) that underlies all questioning, without any of this entering into knowledge — or even into questioning—in the immediate act of questioning and the search for an answer. 7, 8, 9 define the realm of the question. (Origin of the turn? Not inquired into here. From the essence of Being as event.)

In general, this unfolding of the structure of the guiding question becomes possible only when the questioning has already emerged from it — not in some arbitrary “reflection” — but rather in the act of an original questioning of the guiding question itself, in the reflection that awakens and is awakened within it as a question, which thus does not simply abandon this question, but rather recognizes it as initial and therefore, at the same time, as inevitable.

This inner unfolding — arising from the questioning of the guiding question itself—and thus its overcoming will first ask: what, then, is being asked, insofar as a question of knowledge — or even the question of knowledge — is posed here at all. In this respect, the guiding question, in the highest sense — like every question of knowledge in general—asks after the truth about Being.

The nature of this truth remains unasked. It is the truth about Being as such and thus about beingness — that is, the being of the being as conceived from the perspective of a being; but Being itself, and how it can be posited in truth at all, remains entirely unasked. The question of Being itself — for it is the foundation of all things — is the fundamental question. It is entirely different from the guiding question; and at the same time, it is the very question that raises the question of the truth of Being as the pre-question;