By saying this we by no means maintain that the Aristotelian definition of philosophy is absolutely valid. Even within the history of Greek thought it is only one particular interpretation of Greek thinking and of the task assigned to it. The Aristotelian characterization of philosophy cannot in any case be transferred back to the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides. On the contrary, the Aristotelian definition of philosophy is, to be sure, a free consequence of early thinking and its conclusion. I say "a free consequence" because in no way can it be seen that individual philosophies and epochs of philosophy have emerged from one another in the sense of the necessity of a dialectic process.

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