But the question has plainly unveiled itself to us in its question-worthiness. More and more, it now proves to be a concealed ground of our historical Dasein. It will remain this even and precisely when, self-satisfied and busy with all kinds of things, we wander around over this ground as over a thinly covered abyss.

We will now pursue the distinctions between Being and some other. In doing this, we will learn that, contrary to the widely accepted opinion, Being is anything but an empty word for us. Instead, it is determined in so multifaceted a fashion that we can hardly manage to preserve this determination sufficiently. But this is not enough. This experience must be developed into a grounding experience for our future historical Dasein. So that we can participate in carrying out the distinctions in the right way from the start, we offer the following points of orientation:

1. Being is delimited against some other, and thus already has [72|101] a determinateness in this setting of a limit.

2. The delimitation happens in four interrelated respects. Accordingly, the determinateness of Being must either be ramified and heightened or else diminish.

3. These distinctions are by no means accidental. What is held apart by them belongs together originally and tends to come together. Hence, the separations have their own necessity.

4. Therefore, the oppositions that initially strike us as mere formulas did not come up on arbitrary occasions and enter language as figures of speech, as it were. They arose in close connection with the shaping of Being whose openness became definitive for the history of the West. They had their inception with the inception of philosophical questioning.

5. The distinctions have not remained dominant only within Western philosophy. They pervade all knowing, doing, and speaking, even when they are not expressed explicitly or in these words.