The Introduction performs a twofold function: first, to set up the problematic of the Gigantomachy, or "battle between gods and giants," concerning the question of being; second, to lay out a road map as to how the book's argument will commence. The Gigantomachy concerning being is first mentioned in Plato's Sophist in terms of a battle between a transcendent idealism ("the gods") and a reductive materialism ("the giants"). This text takes this original Platonic problem vis-à-vis the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and argues, in the end, in favor of the Platonic idealist side of the battle concerning being.