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FINK: The μία φύσις of day, however, is held against a positing of good and bad, that is, propitious and unpropitious days. The oneness of the nature of day stands against such distinction of the days. This, however, is not to be equated with the ἔστι γὰρ ἕν in reference to day and night. The distinction of good and bad days does not have the same impoρτance as the distinction of day and night. Accordingly, ἕν is in each case different.

HEIDEGGER: Nevertheless, you are in a ceρτain way right in connecting Frs. 57 and 106. In both fragments the talk is about an ignorance in reference to Hesiod. The one time, he misunderstands ἕν in reference to day and night; the other time, he misunderstands the one and the same φύσις of each day. To this extent, ἕν and μία φύσις do hang together.

FINK: Fr. 106 is, rather, only a parallel to Fr. 57. In the latter, Hesiod is found to be unreliable as the teacher of most people. He, who is versed in the fundamental distinction of day and night, has not observed that there is ἕν.

HEIDEGGER: Most people are, for Heraclitus, they who do not know what matters. The πλείστος [the greatest number] are the same as the πολλοί [the many]. We cannot translate φύσις in Fr. 106 with essence.

FINK: When we say "essence," it is not meant in the sense of essentia [substance].

HEIDEGGER: If we include Fr. I 23, φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ [Nature loves to hide], how then is φύσις to be understood?

PARTICIPANT: In the sense of emerging.

HEIDEGGER: The connection of φύσις and ἕν will concern us in greater detail later.

FINK: For me, the puzzling word in Fr. 57 is ἔστι γὰρ ἕν. We have translated: For there is ἕν. But what kind of ἕν is treated here? Is it ἕν in the sense of a counterword to τὰ πάντα, and thus the ἕν of lightning, of the blow, of the sun and of fire; or is still another ἕν meant here? My supposition tends to be that it is a question here of ἕν in the sense of the oneness of both domains of Ἥλιος and of night, which is guarded by Dike and her helpmates. This new sense of ἕν will first become clearer for us if we include the life and death fragments. The night meant here is the nightly abyss by which the sun' s domain is encircled at the four τέρματα as they are called in Fr. 120. Apart from this interpretation, one could also argue as follows. If ἕν is mentioned in Fr. 57 in reference to day and night, it is then a question of the ἕν of the land of sun in which the sun is present and absent in rhythmic change; and indeed in such a manner that in the change of day and night the domain remains in which the sun is present and absent. There is ἕν in so far as the structure of the vault on which the sun moves remains, and in so far as the relation of opposition to the land that lies under the sun remains, even though


Martin Heidegger (GA 15) Heraclitus Seminars