Let us consider for a moment what it means that an era in the history of mankind is characterized as the "atomic age." The atomic energy discovered and liberated by the sciences is represented as that force which is to determine the course of history. Indeed, there would never have been any sciences if philosophy had not preceded them and proceeded. But philosophy is not ἡ φιλόσοφία. This Greek binds our discussion to an historical tradition. Because this tradition is of a unique kind, it is also unique in meaning. This tradition which bears the Greek name φιλόσοφία, and which is labeled for us with the historical word φιλόσοφία, reveals the direction of a path on which we ask, "What is Philosophy?" Tradition does not surrender us to a constraint by what is past and irrevocable. Surrendering is a delivering into the freedom of discussion with what has been. If we truly hear the word and reflect upon what we have heard, the name "philosophy" summons us into the history of the Greek origin of philosophy. The word φιλόσοφία appears, as it were, on the birth certificate of our own history; we may even say on the birth certificate of the contemporary epoch of world history which is called the atomic age. That is why we can ask the question, "What is Philosophy?" only if we enter into a discussion with the thinking of the Greek world.
