15 years after SZ in his Parmenides lectures (1942/43) he says:

“Wahrheit” ist niemals “an sich”, von sich vorhanden, sondern erstritten. (…) Vielmehr ist das Gesuchte und Umkämpfte selbst, in sich, abgesehen vom Kampf des Menschen um es, in seinem Wesen ein Streit: “Unverborgenheit”. Wer da streitet und wie die Streitenden streiten, ist dunkel. Es gilt aber, endlich einmal dieses streithafte Wesen der Wahrheit zu bedenken, das seit zweitausend und fünfhundert Jahren im stillsten aller Lichter leuchtet. Es gilt, den im Wesen der Wahrheit sich ereignenden Streit eigens zu erfahren. (GA54, S 25).

Again:

Die Frage muß aber gefragt werden, worin das Prinzip des “Agons” [bei den Griechen] seinen Grund hat und von woher das Wesen des “Lebens” und des Menschen seine Bestimmung empfängt, so daß es sich “agonal” verhält. Das “Wettkämpferische” kann nur dort erwachen, wo zuvor und überhaupt das Streithafte als das Wesenhafte erfahren ist. (GA54, S 26)

“Streit” is the word used on the last page of SZ to translate “gigantomachia” from the first page of SZ (thereby bracketing the work within the terms of this ontological contest at origin).

Heidegger’s whole enterprise in SZ and after is directed to the clarification of the problems which are knotted in this thought. These problems may be characterized as follows:

- how to think plurality at origin, ie how to think the gigantomachia?

- how to think through the abysmal borders (space of the door) which enable and structure plurality at origin?

- how to achieve or find or come to such thinking? (Der Anfang zeigt sich, wenn er sich überhaupt zeigt, gewiß nicht ohne unser Zutun. Aber die Frage bleibt doch, welcher Art dieses Zutun ist, von woher und wie es bestimmt ist und wird. GA54, S28/29)

- what does the way of thinking towards the contested plurality at origin have to do with the spaces at origin and with time? Is there a kind of ‘knot in time’ (Eliot) through which the spaces at origin somehow ‘reach back’ in time to enable the way towards them? That is, do these original spaces govern also that space which must first be crossed to reach them? How so? Is this knot of time and of spaces what Sein und Zeit would have us understand as the necessary preparation to a thinking of the gigantomachia? “[D]as Entfachen des Streites bedarf schon eine Zurüstung. Hierzu allein ist die vorliegende Untersuchung unterwegs.” (SZ, S. 437)

Heidegger found Hölderlin to be his great predessor on this convoluted pathway. Nietzsche also described it without, however, being able to take it himself. That both ended in protracted silence shows the difficulties and the dangers of the way towards and among the contesting shapes and spaces at origin….

The central questions posed by Heidgeger touched on many others: how to rethink human being and the various worlds of human being in the light of this context? how to rethink the tradition in this light? how to rethink contemporary problems of technology and environment in this light? But, as Heidegger always insisted, whatever contribution he was able to make in these areas was entirely dependent on the cogency of his one thought and of the abgründigen questions implicated in it.

Translation: It is necessary to seek a way towards the illumination of the fundamental question of ontology and to take it. Whether it is the only way, or especially if it is the right way, can first be decided (only) after it has been taken. The contest concerning the interpretation of being (ie, the gigantomachia peri tes ousias) cannot be decided because it is not yet even being waged. And in the end, attempting to “pick a fight” with it won’t work, because even starting to wage the fight requires a prior preparation. It is to this end alone that the investigation at hand is underway.”

The beginning and end of SZ (indeed, also its midpoint with the fable of Cura) describe the gigantomachia and the difficulty of the way towards its investigation. The language in both is identical: the ending phrase, “der Streit bezüglich der Interpretation des Seins”, is a word for word translation of Plato’s gigantomachia peri tes ousias with which SZ begins (both with its motto from the Sophist and with the opening sentences of the text itself). Indeed, as will be illustrated with passages from throughout Heidegger’s corpus, ‘Streit’ (along with ‘Krieg’, ‘polemos‘, ‘Auseinandersetzung’, ‘Wahr-heit’, etc) is Heidegger’s codeword for the gigantomachia and all of these therefore serve to designate what is his ‘one thought’: Sein.

The SZ project was intended to go on to further volumes, but it was broken off before its middle and never resumed. The attempt to describe the knot implicated at this point where it was broken off was, however, never given up. Heidegger would write (and write) for another 50 years and would never venture far from the spot. How to describe the pathless path which must be taken in order to witness the place from which all paths take their beginning?

The Cura fable is a structural replication of the gigantomachia with which SZ begins and ends. In both cases there are three divine figures (or groups of figures): giants/gods/child vs earth/Jupiter/Cura-homo; in both cases the first figure is, or is born from, ‘earth’; in both cases the second figure is identical (Zeus/Ju-piter = Ziu-pater); in both cases, the third figure ‘holds to both’ or combines what the other two figures are exclusively (Cura actively combines them, ‘homo’ passively); in each case, there is an argument or contest between the three which has to be decided; in each case, the decision has constitutional significance – the nature of being in the first case, the nature of human being in the second.

Further, the nature of human being in both the gigantomachia and the Cura fable is identified as ‘both’. The gods and the giants in the gigantomachia are terrible in the singularity of their constitution and, as such, inherently beyond the human. Only the child shows a human face in being subject to both claims. Similarly in the Cura fable, ‘homo’ is compounded of both earth and spirit. ‘Living’ means nothing other than to remain subject to these competing claims and, therefore subject to ‘care’. Only death releases the components which are compounded in human being back to their own elementary natures (which, however, are themselves aboriginally compounded in being).

Heidegger comments on the Cura fable as follows: “Das Ganze der Daseinsverfassung selbst ist daher in seiner Einheit nicht einfach, sondern zeigt eine strukturale Gliederung, die im existenzialen Begriff der Sorge zum Ausdruck kommt.” (SZ,#42, S 200). That is: ‘The whole of the constitution of human being is therefore a unity without being a single unit; instead, it reveals a structural articulation of members which comes to expression in the existential-ontological concept of care (Cura)’.