However, there is yet another reason given by Heidegger for his rethinking of ancient thought. Philosophy, as the very indicates, is Greek. And the Greek word indicates our being grounded in and attached to a historical tradition. Just as we dub our present age "atomic," so also, Heidegger insists, is our philosophical tradition Greek, which means that if we are to understand any word or principle in the western tradiion of philosophy, we are obliged to carry on a dialogue (Gespräch) with the thinkers of Grecian times where these words or statements were first spoken and made philosophically current. And particularly is this the case when we arrive back to words and statements of such original and decisive importance as those of Parmenides and Heraclitus. These men were not yet philosophers, but this was exactly because they were great thinkers. But with the step into philosophy something original and authentic was lost; hence the importance for a re-analysis of thinkers whose words and statements were made at such a decisive moment in the history of western thought.

What was this first step into philosophy? And what did it involve such that it could so substantially affect the course of western philosophy? As Heidegger explains in his short essay Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, there were three things which are essentially the same and which all happened at the same "time": namely, the original uncovering of things as such (Seienden als solchem), and the beginning of western history. It was here that western metaphysics began. It was also here that the forgetting of being occurred. For in the metaphysical questioning after things as such, being is not asked after. It is already forgotten. Indeed, metaphysics talks about being, but it really means things as things.

¶ 7:23 PM