The aim of this article is to offer an in‑depth analysis of the quality of the basic act of phenomenological cognition. By juxtaposing arguments by Jan Patočka and Paul Ricoeur, the author concludes that neither negation (as Patočka claims) nor affirmation (as Ricoeur believes) but only fundamental questioning contributes to the development of fundamental phenomenological experience. From this perspective, the ‘thing of thinking’ is neither non‑Being (nothingness), nor Being, but the attitude of inquisitiveness. Philosophical acts of affirmation and negation, the correlates of which are Being and non‑Being, are responses to the basic experience of questioning. Persistence in the belief that questions have a leading role in philosophy strengthens the position of written communication as the proper medium of expression in philosophical inquiry.

The article is an attempt to define reduction – a phenomenological methodological device – as the beginning of philosophy. The author considers such questions as: What motivates a phenomenologist to do reduction? Can one speak of philosophy before reduction? What is the essence of reduction? To answer these questions the author refers to Edmund Husserl and Jan Patočka, and tries to show that reduction is to be understood as an unmotivated expression of philosopher’s determination to overcome evidence inherent to natural attitude. The author argues that reduction enables one to perform a conceptualization of the world as such. Finally, reduction is defined as an attempt to take thinking seriously.