2
FINK: As a result of Fr. 64, we are driven to the difficulty of elucidating the expression τὰ πάντα. I intentionally do not speak of the concept of τὰ πάντα in order to avoid the idea of a Heraclitean technical vocabulary. The expression τὰ πάντα has shown itself to us in Fr. 64 as that on which lightning comes to bear in a steering way. Lightning, as the opening light, as instantaneous fire, brings τὰ πάντα to light, outlines each thing in its form, and guides the movement, change, and passage of all which belongs in τὰ πάντα. In order to focus more sharply the question of what or who τὰ πάντα are, whether individual things or elements or counterreferences, we began with a preliminary look at other fragments that also name τὰ πάντα. If we disregard what we have already brought into relation to Fr. 64, fifteen text citations follow in which we wish to examine how far, that is, in what respects τὰ πάντα are addressed. In Fr. 64 it has been indicated that lightning is the steerer. It is not a question of an immanent self-regulation of πάντα. We must distinguish lightning as the one from the quintessential many of πάντα.
PARTICIPANT: If the steering principle does not lie within the whole, must it be found outside or above the whole? But how can it be outside the whole?
FINK: If we press it, the concept of the whole means a quintessence that allows nothing outside itself; thus, it apparently {GA 15: 31} does not allow what you call the steering principle. But with Heraclitus, it is a question of a counterreference, at present still not discernible by us, between the ἕν of lightning and τὰ πάντα, which are torn open, steered, and guided by lightning. As a formal logical quintessence τὰ πάντα signifies a concept of "everything," which allows nothing outside itself. It is, nevertheless, questionable whether the steering is something external to τὰ πάντα at all. Here a very peculiar relatedness lies before us, which cannot be expressed at all with current relationship-categories. The relatedness in question, between the lightning that guides τὰ πάντα and τὰ πάντα itself, is the relatedness of one to many. It is not, however, the relationship of the singular to the plural, but the relatedness of a still unclarified one to the many in the one, whereby the many are meant in the sense of quintessence.
HEIDEGGER: Why do you reject Diels' translation of τὰ πάντα as universe?