In the present study, the critical issue of how contemporary phenomenology refers to ancient Greek philosophy through four major representatives does not follow the logic of a linear development of philosophical positions, as it prioritizes a direct confrontation with the Greek conceptuality in the fields of ontology, ethics, and politics.

But why do concepts take precedence over philosophical propositions and function as a bridge both with the Greek heritage and with contemporary phenomenological philosophy in its various forms? The exercise of the phenomenological method unfolds here in the interpretative confrontation with the other, that which is temporally distant, but also the linguistically and conceptually other, “the Greek”.

The selection of five primary ancient Greek concepts serves the interpretative imperative of lectiodifficilior, for which phenomenological philosophy in its plurality signifies a unified style of research. A necessary prerequisite for this endeavor is the recognition of the coexistence of two opposing interpretative gestures, one of appropriation and simultaneously another gesture of disappropriation regarding the way contemporary phenomenology, in all its versions, ascribes meaning to “the Greek”.

In reality, “thinking Greek” is a challenge for the phenomenological method, both in terms of how it is practiced and regarding the limits of its stakes. The certainty is that the renewed access to classical thought constitutes, for all four phenomenologists discussed in the study, the cutting edge of its relevance: the five ancient Greek concepts are neither timely nor untimely in themselves, as it is the exercise of the phenomenological gaze that renders them hermeneutically active.