At the beginning of the second session, some things were added to the general remarks with which the seminar began.
a. The belonging of the relation of Being and thinking together with the question of Being.
Although the relation of Being and thinking—or Being and man—is not explicitly discussed in the lecture, we must keep in mind the fact that it belongs essentially to every step of the question of Being. Here we must note a double role of thinking. The thinking which essentially belongs to the openness of Being is, on the one hand, the thinking which distinguishes man. In terms of Being and Time, it can be called understanding thinking. On the other hand, thinking is interpretative thinking, the thinking which thinks the relation of Being and thinking, and the question of Being in general.
We must consider whether thinking in the first sense can characterize the peculiarity of interpretative thinking, the way in which "philosophical'" thinking belongs to the question of Being. It remains questionable whether interpretation can be what is characteristic of thinking at all when it is a matter of truly taking upon ourselves the question of Being. The task for thinking {GA 14: 44} is that of freeing itself and keeping itself free for what is to be thought in order to receive its determination from that.
b. Provisionalness.
A further characteristic of the thinking which is also decisive for the realization of the question of Being is closely bound up with the fact that thinking receives its decisive determination only when it enters Appropriation. Echoes of this can already be found in the discussion of the step back. This characteristic is its provisionalness. Above and beyond the most obvious meaning that this thinking is always merely preparatory, provisionalness has the deeper meaning that this thinking always anticipated—and this in the mode of the step back. Thus the emphasis on the provisional character of these considerations does not stem from any kind of pretended modesty, but rather has a strict, objective meaning which is bound up with the finitude of thinking and of what is to be thought. The more stringently the step back is taken, the more adequate anticipatory Saying becomes.