Abstract

"Heidegger" and "comedy" are words that one seldom finds conjoined. However, in his 1943 Summer Freiburg lecture course entitled " Der Anfang des abendländischen Denkens. Heraklit ," the word " komisch " occurs significantly, it is regarded as superior to " das Tragische ," and thus can open up a new vista onto Heideggerian thought. In this paper, I discuss Heidegger's interpretive translation of Heraclitus' Fragment 123: Φυσιζ κρυπτ∊σθαι φιλ∊ι. I attempt to show how Heidegger distinguishes his translation and interpretation from other great thinkers and other ways of thought, and how this distinction ultimately unfolds into that unlikeliest and untimeliest of beings, a uniquely comic Heidegger