7
HEIDEGGER: Since we have interrupted our seminar for three weeks over Christmas, a short synopsis of the way of our undertaking till now might prove useful. If an outsider were to ask you what we work at in our seminar, how would you answer such a question?
PARTICIPANT: Discussion of the problem of time in Fr. 30 was central in the last hours before Christmas.
HEIDEGGER: In other words, you have indeed let yourself be misled by the explication of Fr. 30 which Mr. Fink has given. For—as we have emphasized again and again—time does not come to the fore at all with Heraclitus.
PARTICIPANT: But Fr. 30 leads to time determinations, and our question was how these ought to be understood. {GA 15: 119}
HEIDEGGER: With that, you go into a special question. But if somebody asked you what we work at in our Heraclitus seminar, and if he wanted to hear not about individual questions but about the whole; if he asked what we have begun with, what would your answer be?
PARTICIPANT: We have begun with a methodical preliminary consideration, that is, with the question of how Heraclitus is to be understood.
HEIDEGGER: What has Mr. Fink done at the beginning of his interpretation?
PARTICIPANT: He has started with a consideration of τὰ πάντα.
HEIDEGGER: But how does he come to τὰ πάντα—If I speak with you now, I thus speak with everyone.—
PARTICIPANT: Through Fr. 64: τὰ δὲ πάντα οἰακίζει Κεραυνός.
HEIDEGGER: In the explication, have we begun with τὰ πάντα or with lightning? For it is important to distinguish that.
PARTICIPANT: First, we have asked ourselves how τὰ πάντα is to be translated: then, we turned to the lightning: and finally, we have looked at all the fragments in which τὰ πάντα is mentioned.