The references to the common yet ambiguous usage of the “is” convinced us that the talk of the indeterminateness and emptiness of Being is erroneous. Instead, the “is” determines the meaning and the content of the infinitive “to be,” and not vice versa. Now we can also comprehend why this must be so. The “is” serves as the copula, as the “little connecting word” (Kant) in the assertion. The assertion contains the “is.” But because the assertion, λόγος as κατηγορία, has become the court of justice over Being, the assertion determines Being on the basis of the “is” that is proper to assertion.

Being, from which we set out as an empty label, {211} must therefore have a definite meaning, contrary to this semblance of emptiness.

The determinateness of Being was brought before our eyes by the discussion of the four separations:

Being, in contradistinction to becoming, is enduring.

Being, in contradistinction to seeming, is the enduring prototype, the always identical.

Being, in contradistinction to thinking, is what lies at the basis, the present-at-hand.

Being, in contradistinction to the ought, is what lies at hand in each case as what ought to be and has not yet been actualized, or already has been actualized.

Endurance, perpetual identity, presence at hand, lying at hand—all at bottom say the same: constant presence {ständige Anwesenheit}, ὄν as οὐσία.

This determinateness of Being is not accidental. It grows out of the determination¹¹⁷ under which our historical Dasein stands by virtue of its great inception among the Greeks. The determinateness of Being is not a matter of delimiting a mere meaning of a word.

117. Bestimmung here can also mean destiny, vocation, or dispensation.