forced to write and read linearly ... and in brief. Other Greek elements likewise permeate the Einleitung from its beginning. By later standards, for example, Heidegger is, like the Greeks, excessively and almost obsessively visual in his opening metaphors: the position and line of sight (Blickstand und Blickrichtung, in later drafts Blickhabe und Blickbahn) of the hermeneutic situation, and the resulting breadth of vision; insight by way of circumspection and inspection (Umsehen und Hinsehen) into how a thing looks (Aussehen), to the point of finding that the experience of "having death" imparts a "peculiar kind of sight" to lifel
In its sheer innovative thrust, the typescript of October 1922, like no other of this period, deserves to be called Heidegger's breakthrough to his magnum opus. Is this the aletheic breakthrough that the old Heidegger has us looking for? It is certainly not the ousiological breakthrough, since οὐσία as constant presence still does not put in an appearance. Regardless, the sheer concentration of new insights dictates that we tarry a while over this seminal text.13
Phenomenological Interpretations to Aristotle:
Indication of the Hermeneutic Situation
The following interpretations contribute to a history of ontology and logic [that is, of a doctrine of being and of the ways in which being is said and spoken]. Interpretations are subject to certain conditions of understanding. In order to come to a suitable interpretation, in order to have the thematic object speak for itself, the hermeneutic situation relative to that interpretation must be secured in a sufficiently transparent outline. That situation of interpretation includes a certain [ l] position of sight and [2] directive line of sight, along with the [3) range of vision resulting from them.
Interpretation is always situated in a "living present" [Husserl, Bergson, James]. History itself, the past appropriated in understanding, is apprehended in direct proportion to the originality of the decisive choice and development of the particular hermeneutic situation. The past opens up only in direct relation to the measure of resoluteness (Entschlossenheit!) and disclosive capacity that a present can muster. The originality of a philosophical interpretation is determined by the specific sureness in which philosophical research maintains itself and its tasks. The way philosophy defines itself, in its research of its concrete problematic, in turn already decides its basic attitude toward the history of philosophy. The actual field of objects to be placed under question is determined by the direction or line of sight into which the past can be set. Such "interpreting into" an object not only is not contrary to historical knowing but in fact is the basic condition needed to bring the past to speak at all. Interpretations which maintain that they operate without the "constructions"