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to ourselves by starting out from the phenomenon of the break of day, from the phenomenon of dawn on the Ionian coast. At dawn, the expanse of the sea flashes up out of the fire which breaks out from night and drives out night; and opposite the sea there flashes up the shore and land, and above the sea and land the zone of the vault of heaven which is tilled by the breath of fire. A deeper sense would lie in what is familiar to us as the break of day, if we do not now think the relationship of fire to sea, earth, and breath of fire, namely the bringing-forth-to-appearance that is the basic event of fire, simply as the casting of light to and letting-be-seen of that which is already determined thus and so. A deeper sense would lie in that which is familiar to us as the break of day, if we also do not understand bringing-forth in the sense of a building manufacture or of a creative bringing-forth, but attempt to advance thoughtfully behind the two expressive forms, coming-forth-to-appearance in the sense of technical and creative achievement and casting of light. In order to win a deeper sense of the break of day, it would depend on avoiding the scheme of technical bringing-forth in the sense of a material transformation and also the scheme of creative bringing-forth; and beside that, it would depend on taking away from the letting-shine-up in the light of fire the basic trait of impotence. If we could succeed in thinking back behind the familiar schemata of making, bringing-forth, and casting light or letting-be-seen, then we could understand the break of day in a deeper sense. We could then say that in the breaking of the world-day the basic distinctions of the world area, {136} sea, earth, and vault of heaven, first come forth to appearance. For this deeper thought we have an immediate phenomenon in the break of day. But nowhere do we have a phenomenon corresponding to the return course of earth into sea.
HEIDEGGER: How would you translate τροπαί in your projection, which you yourself call fantastic, but which is not at all so fantastic because it includes reference to immediate phenomena.
FINK: We see the arising of fire, and in its arising the τροπαί are the turnings of fire around toward that which shows itself in the fire shine. τροπαί signify no material transformations ...
HEIDEGGER: ... and also no mere illumination.
FINK: In announcement of the deeper sense of πυρὸς τροπαί, I was concentrating on a commonness, not known in ontic relationships, of bringing-forth into visibility and letting-arise in the sense of φύσις. That is an attempt to avoid the scheme in which fire converts like an original element over into other elements like water and earth. And I attempt to think this in a simile between the arising of the articulated world in the light-shine of the world illuminating fire, and the regions of m1vra laying themselves out.
HEIDEGGER: You thus take the phenomenon of dawn as the basis of your interpretation ...