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lifeless things, we operate with an expanded, more general, sense of this word. For if we refer γένεσις to τὰ πάντα, we expand the sense of γένεσις beyond the phenomenal region in which the genesis-phenomenon is otherwise at home.
HEIDEGGER: What you understand by the phenomenal sense of the word γένεσις we can also label as ontic.
FINK: We also meet the widening of the original, phenomenal meaning of γένεσις in common language, for example, when we speak of the world's coming into existence. We use specific images and domains of ideas in our representations. With γινομένων, in Fr. 1, we are concerned with the more general sense of γένεσις. For τὰ πάντα does not come into existence like that entity which comes into existence in accordance with γένεσις in the narrower sense, and also not like living beings. It is another matter when, in the coming-into-existence of things, manufacture and production (τέχνη and ποίησις) are also meant. The ποίησις of phenomena is, however, something other than the γένεσις. The jug does not come into existence by means of the potter's hand like the man is begotten by parents.
HEIDEGGER: Let us once again clarify for ourselves what our task is. We ask: what does τὰ πάντα mean in Fr. 64; and πάντα διὰ πάντων in Fr. 41; and γινομένων γὰρ πάντων in Fr. 1? κατὰ τὸν λόγον [according to the Logos] in Fr. 1 corresponds with ἓν τὸ σοφόν in Fr. 41 and κεραυνός in Fr. 64.
FINK: In γινομένων the sense of γένεσις is used in widened manner.
HEIDEGGER: But can one actually speak of a widening here? I mean that we should try to understand "steering," "everything throughout everything," and now the movement that is thought in γινομένων, in a genuine Greek sense. I agree that we may not take the meaning of γένεσις in γινομένων narrowly; rather, it is here a matter of a general expression. Fr. I is considered to be the beginning of Heraclitus' writing. Something fundamental is said in it. But may we now refer γινομένων, thought in γένεσις in a wide sense, to coming-forth [Hervorkommen]? In anticipation, we can say that we must keep in view the fundamental trait of what the Greeks called being. Although I do not like to use this word any more, we now take it up nevertheless. When Heraclitus thinks γένεσις in γινομένων, he does not mean "becoming" in the modern sense; that is, he does not mean a process. But thought in Greek, γένεσις means "to come into being," to come forth in presence. We now have three different concerns, drawn out of Frs. 64, 41, and 1, to which we must hold ourselves, if we wish to come into the clear concerning τὰ πάντα. Let us also draw on Fr. 50: οὐκ ἐµοῦ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁµολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναί. Diels' translation runs, "Listening not to me but to the Logos (λόγος), it is wise to say that everything is one." Before all else, this saying centers on ἕν, πάντα, and ὁμολογεῖν.