EARLY GREEK THINKING

The translations by Nietzsche and Diels arise from different intentions and procedures. Nevertheless they are scarcely distinguishable. In many ways Diels' translation is more literal. But when a translation is only literal it is not necessarily faithful. It is faithful only when its terms are words which speak from the language of the matter itself.

More important than the general agreement of the two translations is the conception of Anaximander which underlies both. Nietzsche locates him among the Preplatonic philosophers, Diels among the Presocratics. The two designations are alike. The unexpressed standard for considering and judging the early thinkers is the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. These are taken as the Creek philosophers who set the standard both before and after themselves. Traversing Christian theology, this view becomes firmly entrenched as a universal conviction, one which to this day has not been shaken. In the meantime, even when philological and historical research treat philosophers before Plato and Aristotle in greater detail, Platonic and Aristotelian representations and concepts, in modern transformations, still guide the interpretation. That is also the case when attempts are made to locate what is archaic in early thinking by finding parallels in classical archaeology and literature. Classic and classicist representations prevail. We expatiate on archaic logic, not realizing that logic occurs for the first time in the curriculum of the Platonic and Aristotelian schools.

Simply ignoring these later notions will not help in the course of translating from one language to another, if we do not first of all see how it stands with the matter to be translated. But the matter here is a matter for thinking. Granted our concern for philologically enlightened language, we must in translating first of all think about the matter involved. Therefore only thinkers can help us in our attempt to translate the fragment of this early thinker. When we cast about for such help we surely seek in vain.

In his own way the young Nietzsche does establish a vibrant rapport with the personalities of the Preplatonic philosophers; but his interpretations of the texts are commonplace, if not entirely superficial, throughout. Hegel is the only Western thinker who has thoughtfully experienced the history of thought; yet he says nothing about the

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