Therefore in order to decide how Aristotle laid the foundation for the subsequent common interpretation of the essence of truth, we have to know how he conceived the essence as such, the essentiality of the essence, especially since the Aristotelian determination of the essentiality of the essence became the standard one for the times that followed and remains valid, despite some modifications, even today. But we must again renounce a detailed presentation of the Aristotelian doctrine of the essentiality of the essence. For to do it satisfactorily, a far-reaching interpretation, especially of the seventh book of the Metaphysics, would have to be articulated. Within the context of our lectures what matters is only the basic thrust of the Aristotelian determination of the essentiality of the essence, i.e., that which corresponds to, and springs forth as, the inner law of the beginning of Occidental thinking, and which received from Plato its decisive stamp for all subsequent Western thought.
RECAPITULATION
1) Rejection of three misinterpretations of the distinction between historiographical consideration and historical reflection. Science and historical reflection.
The present discussions in the history of philosophy, as well as those to come later in the lecture course, are to be understood in the light of the distinction between a historiographical consideration and a historical reflection. Admittedly, the distinction and what is distinguished in it have not been examined here thoroughly in every respect. Therefore the possibility of misunderstanding will inevitably persist. Yet three conspicuous misinterpretations should expressly be rejected:
1. Since we said historical reflection is accomplished only by creative thinkers within various domains, one might suppose that it can treat the past with completely unbounded freedom. But historical reflection is in fact bound to the past in an essentially more rigorous way than historiography is. For what historical reflection remembers in the past is one and the same as the future, which the creators establish, and grasp as law, in their decisions