Time and interpretation in Heraclitus

Reading the Heraclitean fragments after Heidegger is a daunting if perhaps impossible task. Furthermore the complexity of Heidegger’s repeated return to Heraclitus, almost independently of its forming a fundamental part of the development of his own philosophy, poses the problem of how to take a stand in relation to it. Perhaps a way into the problem could start from a consideration of the conception of language Heidegger deploys in his reading. I must indicate that in order to give this chapter a specific focus I have limited myself to a discussion of his 1953 text An Introduction to Metaphysics.* Heidegger emerges as an important detour on the way to developing an interpretation of Heraclitus. It is however a detour that must be made.