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CONVERSATION ON A COUNTRY PATH

word at this point; for it does not hit that nature of thinking which we have come to assume along our way.

Scientist: Indeed, waiting is really almost a counter-movement to going toward.

Scholar: Not to say a counter-rest.

Teacher: Or simply rest. Yet has it been definitely decided that Ἀγχιβασίην means going toward?

Scholar: Translated literally it says "going near."

Teacher: Perhaps we could think of it also as: "moving-into-nearness."

Scientist: You mean that quite literally in the sense of "letting- oneself-into-nearness"?

Teacher: About that.

Scholar: Then this word might be the name, and perhaps the best name, for what we have found.

Teacher: Which, in its nature, nevertheless, we are still seeking.

Scholar: Ἀγχιβασίην: "moving-into-nearness." The word could rather, so it seems to me now, be the name for our walk today along this country path.

Teacher: Which guided us deep into the night . . .

Scientist: . . . that gleams ever more splendidly . . .

Scholar: . . . and overwhelms the stars . . .

Teacher: . . . because it nears their distances in the heavens . . .

Scientist: ... at least for the naive observer, although not for the exact scientist.

Teacher: Ever to the child in man, night neighbors the stars.

Scholar: She binds together without seam or edge or thread.


Discourse On Thinking (GA 13) by Martin Heidegger