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matter of thinking is that which we seek, that of which we still do not know. The same outsider, after he has listened to what you answer to his question, could reply to you that when we deal with Heraclitus we sit, as it were, in an ivory tower. For what we are doing would have nothing to do with technology and industrial society; rather, it is nothing but worn-out stories. What would be the answer here?
PARTICIPANT: It is doubtful that we are dealing here with worn out stories. For we do not take Heraclitus as a thinker of the past. It is rather our intention to bring something to the fore in the exposition of Heraclitus that is possibly something other or quite the same. For us, there is no concern for an exposition that has to do with a past matter.
HEIDEGGER: Do we thus provide no contribution to Heraclitus research?
PARTICIPANT: I would not say that, because our problematic can also be helpful for research. {GA 15: 124}
HEIDEGGER: We seek the determination of the matter of thinking in conversation with Heraclitus. We intend thereby no thematic contribution to Heraclitus research. We are not interested in this direction. Perhaps what we are doing is also inaccessible for Heraclitus research. The way and manner in which we speak with the fragments and listen to them is not the simple, everyday way and manner of forming an opinion, as when we read the newspaper. Mr. Fink forces you to think otherwise. The greater difficulty of the more difficult rendition is not only related by degrees to our capacity of apprehension. What seems here like a grammatical comparative is presumably another distinction.
PARTICIPANT: A comparative presupposes that something which stands in a context gets compared. Between the simple, everyday thinking and understanding and that which is called the more difficult rendition, there is clearly a gulf that is worthy of emphasis.
HEIDEGGER: We have thus looked at the reference of τὰ πάντα and lightning, τὰ πάντα and sun, τὰ πάντα and fire. In Fr. 7, πάντα τὰ ὄντα was mentioned. In the reference of τὰ πάντα to lightning, to the sun, to fire and to ἕν, which we have come across, what is the greater difficulty of the more difficult rendition in distinction to the naive manner of reading?
PARTICIPANT: The question is whether the reference of πάντα to lightning, to the sun, to fire, to ἕν, to πόλεμος, or to λόγος is in each case different, or whether the expressed multiplicity of that to which τὰ πάντα refers is only the name of a manifold.
HEIDEGGER: The difficulty before which we stand is the manifold of lightning, the sun, fire, ἕν, war and λόγος in their relationship to τὰ πάντα, or to τὰ πάντα. The manifold does not belong to πάντα or to ὄντα. But to what does it then belong? {GA 15: 125}
PARTICIPANT: I see the difficulty in this, that on one hand τὰ πάντα