does not expressly emphasize them. Reflection here remains within the rut of pre-philosophical knowledge.
If reference to the Dasein and its comportments belongs to the essential nature of ontological inquiry and interpretation, then the ontological problematic of antiquity can be brought to itself and conceived in its possibility only if and when the necessity of this return to the Dasein is taken seriously. This return is at bottom no return at all, since the Dasein, corresponding to the nature of its existence, is always already consciously with its own self, is disclosed for itself, and as such always understands something like the being of a being. The Dasein does not first need to go back to itself. This talk of a return is justified only by the fact that the Dasein has apparently been forgotten in naive ancient ontology. Not only is the explicit elaboration of the basis of ancient ontology possible in principle for a possible philosophical understanding, but it is factually demanded by the incompleteness and indeterminateness of ancient ontology itself. Apart from the fact that the basic concepts are not themselves given an express and explicit foundation but are simply there, one knows not how, it remains before all else obscure whether what the second thesis says is valid and why it is valid: that essentia and existentia belong to every being. It is in no way proved and immediately evident that this thesis holds good of every being. This question becomes decidable only if it is established beforehand that every being is actual—that the realm of beings actually extant coincides with that of beings generally, that being coincides with actuality, and that every being is constituted by means of a whatness. If the attempted proof of the correctness of the thesis fails, that is, if being does not coincide with existentia in the ancient sense of actuality, extantness, then the thesis all the more requires an express foundation in its restricted validity for all beings in the sense of the extant [at-hand]. The question then has to be asked again whether what is intended in the thesis retains its universal validity if the essential content of the thesis is sufficiently extended and fundamentally conceived in regard to all possible modes of being. We not only wish to but must understand the Greeks better than they understood themselves. Only thus shall we actually be in possession of our heritage. Only then is our phenomenological investigation no mere patchwork or contingent alteration and improvement or impairment. It is always a sign of the greatness of a productive achievement when it can let issue from itself the demand that it should be understood better than it understands itself. Matters of no importance need no higher intelligibility. Ancient ontology, however, is fundamentally not unimportant and can never be overcome, because it represents the first necessary step that any philosophy at all has to take, so that this step must always be repeated by every actual philosophy. Only a self-complacent modernity lapsed into barbarism can wish to make us