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FINK: Till now, we have come across humans only in relationship to the gods (Fr. 62). Fr. 26 deals with the human being alone, but without ignoring the other references. ἅπτεται is the fundamental word of the fragment. There is, however, a difference between ἅπτεται in reference to the light, and ἅπτεται as the touching of those who are awake on the sleeping and the sleeping on the dead. In Fr. 26, no narrative is told, no passing event is reported; rather, the basic relationships of a human are seen, on the one hand to the power of light, and on the other, to the power of what is closed, which he touches in a different manner. ἅπτεται is first referred to the light, then to the darkness of those who sleep and to the greater darkness of the dead. ἅπτεται is common to all three references. If we do not take fire as an element, but as that which casts a shine, and makes possible the distantiality of the one who grasps and what is grasped in the shine, then too little is said with the possible translation of fire-kindling as "contact." We must ask in what reference the contact must be specified. On the one hand, it is a matter of contact with the fire that makes a clearing, and not just burning and warming fire; on the other hand it is a matter of contact with, or a touching on, that which does not shine up, but which closingly withdraws itself from a human.
HEIDEGGER: What closingly withdraws itself is not at first open, in order then to close itself. It does not close itself, because it is also not open. {244}
FINK: Self-closing does not mean being locked up. Touching on is, here, a seizing of what cannot be seized, a touching on what is untouchable. In the dark of sleep, a human touches on death, on a possibility of his own. But that does not mean that he becomes dead. For it says: ζῶν δὲ ἅπτεται τεθνεῶτος.
HEIDEGGER: In my opinion, the distress of the whole Heraclitus interpretation is to be seen in the fact that what we call fragments are not fragments, but citations from a text in which they do not belong. It is a matter of citations out of different passages ...
FINK: ... that are not elucidated by the context.
HEIDEGGER: Mr. Fink will now give us a preview of the further way