But in spite of this "linguistic devolution" of the word being, something which most certainly contributed to the general forgetting of being in the West, the Greek view of being remains fundamentally the western view. And what the Greeks understood by the word being, namely as a standing there (Da-stehen), a coming to stand (zum Stand kommen), and a remaining there in place (im Stand bleiben) still remains the way in which being is designated in the West.

Also implied in this Greek conception of being, Heidegger notes, is the necessity of its own limit (πέρας). And continued within the "coming to stand" (Zum Stand kommen) is the added notion that being somehow establishes its own boundaries or limits (er-grenzen). For only in this way, says Heidegger, interpreting being in accordance with Dasein's future possibilities, can it be explained how for Aristotle being could have come to mean ἐντελέχεια, i.e., "holding-itself-within-certain-limits," "das Sich-in-der-Endung (Grenze)-halten (wahren)." And just as this, the more solid (ständig) aspect of Physis in the philosophy of Aristotle came to mean ὀυσία; so also the other aspect of the Greek notion of being, the aspect grounded in the Greek root Pha-, namely, being as appearance, also suffered mutation at the hands of later philosophers. Thus it was primarily in the philosophy of Plato that the appearing aspect of being was changed over into something entirely different. For the true meaning of appearance among the Greeks as that which having a face could thereby let itself be seen (the original meaning of είδος in the view of Heidegger) came to mean the mere appearance or the look (Aussehen) of the thing.

¶ 7:53 PM