[Heidegger] claims that Plato first says “to the things themselves,” in the seventh letter, where he writes: “to pragma auto.” I’ve heard “to the things themselves” explained in reference to Kant’s “thing in-itself.” It’s claimed that Husserl calls “phenomena” “the thing in itself,” thus he’s making an ironic reference to Kant, who said we couldn’t know the thing in-itself. Anyone who reads German knows this is an English speaker’s mistake. “The thing in itself” (Kant’s thing that we can’t know) in German is “Das Ding an sich.” “Sich” is a reflective, like when you say “I’m gonna get me some dinner.” Ding relates to our word “thing” (Grimm’s law: ‘d’, ‘t’ , ‘th’). “Sache” doesn’t imply a physical thing, but just any old thing, like: “we going to this movie thing?” “Did I tell you this thing I heard?”

¶ 9:48 PM