The meaning of guidewords: Instructions for reflection upon the difference between being and beings

We are attempting, through a series of guidewords, to raise into knowledge something about the being of beings. And this, for the present, only in order to procure for ourselves, entirely from afar and in a modest way, a preparation for the resolve to follow the ancient saying meleta to pan [Heidegger: "Take into care beings as a whole"], and in following what is incipient in Western thinking to come nearer and thus to know something of what, after all, is said in the inception. In case we are struck by a word from this inceptive saying, we are at least in clearer readiness for the direction toward which we must listen.

It must be observed with respect to misunderstandings already circulating that the guidewords about being do not appear as propositions that promulgate a special doctrine or system, or that merely develop a particular "theory" about being. The guidewords are not propositions that can be passed around as assertions "about" a "philosophical standpoint." Taken as such, they would be misunderstood in everything essential.

The guidewords are instructions for reflection upon what comes to light when we have a proper eye for what we can do without. And indeed this reflection can be carried out at all times, from all situations, and according to various forms. It also does not have to cling to the phrasing of what is said here.

The main point is this: to take notice of something neglected, to learn to take notice of it without the hasty urge to immediately seek out utility and purpose. In the realm of this reflection, it is a matter of having the courage not to be as "daring" as the usual and exclusive calculation of what is actual in each case. It is a matter of having the courage to look around the domain of the difference between beings and being and simply to recognize what holds sway here. It is a matter of resisting the nearly ineradicable thought that every such attempt is only a going astray in abstractions, and indeed to resist on grounds of the growing knowledge of being, which might appear to us like the incarnation of all abstraction pure and simple.

At the end we say: Being is the most said. For it is said in every word of language, and nevertheless discourse and writing talk for the most part only about beings. This comes to articulation. Even where we actually say the "is" and thus name being, we say the "is" only to assert a being about a being. Beings are said. Being is kept silent about. But not by us and on purpose. For we are unable to discover any trace of an intention not to say being. Hence, the keeping silent must indeed come from being itself. Hence, being is a keeping silent about itself, and this is certainly the ground of the possibility of keeping silent and the origin of silence. In this realm of silence, the word first arises each time.

P. 64-65

¶ 5:30 PM