Heraclitus and the Silent Voice of Logos

In this article, I examine Heraclitus’s 50th fragment with regard to the pronominal negation, ouk emou. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the dictum «one is all» is not something uttered by the logos, but rather is a response given by the human being according to the silent voice of the logos. Secondly, I proceed to analyze the deictic character of the negation ouk emou, aligning my interpretation with Agamben’s exposition of pronouns in Language and Death. Thus, I argue that in Heraclitus’s case, the pronoun testifies to the event, or the happening, of language. This happening is demonstrated in a showing manner, rather than a communicative one. This reading enforces the argument that logos itself does not say anything, let alone that one is all, supporting Heidegger’s interpretation of language as consonance of silence (Geläut der Stille).