attempt with the step back. The term "step back" suggests various misinterpretations. {https://www.beyng.com/gaselis/?vol=11&pg=59} "Step back" does not mean an isolated step of thought, but rather means the manner in which thinking moves, and a long path. Since the step back determines the character of our conversation with the history of Western thinking, our thinking in a way leads us away from what has been thought so far in philosophy. Thinking recedes before its matter, Being, and thus brings what is thought into a confrontation in which we behold the whole of this history—behold it with respect to what constitutes the source of this entire thinking, because it alone establishes and pre· pares for this thinking the area of its abode. In contrast to Hegel, this is not a traditional problem, already posed, but what has al· ways remained unasked throughout this history of thinking. We speak of it, tentatively and unavoidably, in the language of tradition. We speak of the difference between Being and beings. The step back goes from what is unthought, from the difference as such, into what gives us thought.2 That is the oblivion of the difference. The oblivion here to be thought is the veiling of the difference as such, thought in terms of λήθη (concealment); this veiling has in turn withdrawn itself from the beginning. The oblivion belongs to the difference because the difference belongs to the oblivion.
2 Das zu-Denkende is that which gives thinking to us and it is that which is to be thought. (Tr.)
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