The δια , named twice but each time with a different meaning, determines the structure of what is thought. What is constant through and through is at the same time, in its constancy, like something broken, although not interrupted or shattered. If instead of the Λόγος [341] we say ‘originary forgathering,’ and by this think being, then the first part of the saying can be rewritten as follows: the human is turned most of all toward being, from which and toward which he always relates, though in such a way that he is normally turned away from it. When we hear for the first time this reference to this strange relation of the human to being, it seems as though we cannot think anything about it, as though at stake here were something that thinkers once thought about in distant speculations. But it is precisely the fact that we are of this opinion that serves as the most pressing proof that what is said about the relation to being presides and dominates everywhere within us. Indeed, it is because we are the most turned toward being in a manner that is the most bearing that we understand being automatically, so to speak.
After all, who fails to understand what is said when someone in the course of speaking uses the word ‘is’? While we do understand the word ‘being,’ we nevertheless do not turn ourselves more toward what is thereby understood. Of course, it is different with beings as a whole, which presence everywhere. But with ‘being’? This mountain, which either is or is not, addresses the human: but the ‘is’ itself does not. This river, which either is or is not, besets the human: but the ‘is’ itself does not. This human, who either is or is not, concerns the human: but the ‘is’ itself does not. This god, who either is or is not, rules over the human: but the ‘is’ itself does not. The mountain, the river, the human, the god: certainly, all of this, and yet still more, concerns us. We treat the ‘is’ like an unimportant add-on, if we pay attention to it at all. Nevertheless, the ‘is’ names being. How would matters stand if the human were not turned toward being before all else, and turned toward it the most? How would matters stand if the human were not standing in the presencing of being? What, then, would happen to the mountain that either is or is not, or the river that either is or is not, or the human that either is or is not, or the god that either is or is not? Without being, what would all aggregations and throngs of beings amount to? Still, the human remains mostly turned away from being itself, without thereby [342] effacing the presencing of being. What is the essential consequence of this turningaway? And what, at the same time, ineluctably comes with it?
Heraclitus speaks of this in the second part of saying 72, which he begins with καί:
καὶ οἷς καθ᾽ἡμέραν ἐγκυροῦσι, ταῦτα αὐτοῖς ξένα φαίνεται .
Therefore also that (i.e., the many various things), they encounter daily.
Here, Heraclitus is not speaking of the singularity of being, but rather of the plurality of beings: every day the human encounters the manifold of beings, pursues
254 Logic: Heraclitus’s Doctrine of the Logos