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Phronêsis as Genuine Being of Human Beings in the SS1923 Seminar on Nicomachean Ethics VI

HAVING WRITTEN TO KARL LÖWITH ON FEBRUARY 23, 1923, that he had added four extra hours to his winter seminar on Aristotle in order to be done with his “preparatory interpretations” (Denker 2017, 83), on April 21 Heidegger informed Löwith of his decision to continue the seminar into the summer in order to complete the thought put forward there (“vorgesetzte Pensum,” 85). The summer seminar indeed picks up the reading of Nicomachean Ethics VI where the preceding seminar left off. It also focuses entirely on this text. While there are passing references to De Anima and other texts, none of them are made the object of a detailed reading. Furthermore, as would be expected, the focus in the reading of NE VI comes to be on phronêsis as the motion distinctive of human being. As the previous seminar would also lead us to expect, praxis, as the object of phronêsis, is on Heidegger’s reading barely distinguishable from poiêsis. Finally, this focus displaces the phenomenon of life as such from the center of attention; while there are occasional gestures toward speaking of the being of life, what is clearly meant primarily or exclusively in each case is human life. The Ethics has taken the place of De Anima once and for all. On the other hand, the seminar begins to move consistently and decisively in the direction of what will become the existential analysis of Dasein a few years later. The seminar can thus be seen as an important turning point. In the process we see again how Heidegger is inspired by Aristotle’s texts but also challenged by them.

For the first class of May 4, Helene Weiss reports herself as having been absent and therefore reproduces the notes of another student, Elli (Elizabeth) Bondi.¹ Unfortunately, Bondi’s notes are not very informative, telling us little more than that the third chapter of NE VI was the focus of attention and referring to the specific lines that were discussed with very brief interpretative paraphrases. Becker’s notes on the class (Becker II, 44–45) are not any more informative; indeed, they skip the first part of the class recorded by Bondi. Yet the orientation of the class emerges clearly enough. Referring to the five dianoetic virtues listed at the start of chapter 3, Heidegger returns to the question posed in chapter 2: which is the best disposition (1139a16; τίς ἡ βελτίστη ἕξις), or rather, which are the best dispositions, assuming, as chapter 2 apparently does, that there is one for each part of the rational soul (the calculative and the scientific). Since all five are ways of alêtheuein, these ways will need to be distinguished both according to the being of their objects and according to the kind of dispositions they are. Chapter 3 turns immediately to scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήμη). Aristotle takes a rather strange approach to the question of what scientific knowledge or epistêmê is. Though he claims that the answer is clear if we are precise and are not taken in by resemblances, he immediately appeals to what everyone supposes (1139b19–20; πάντες γὰρ ὑπολαμβάνομεν). Heidegger notes that Aristotle begins “with natural consciousness, what one believes on the topic, commonly” (WC, 2). So what do we all suppose about knowledge? We all suppose that what we know remains as and what it is when we are no longer contemplating it (1139b21–22; ὅταν ἔξω τοῦ θεωρεῖν γένηται).² Heidegger connects this to the verb epistô understood as “I stand by or before something,” it does not evade me (this is the first point noted by Becker II, 44). Since what admits of being otherwise could be different or not be at all when we are not contemplating it, we can know only what does not admit of being otherwise: what is eternal or ungenerable and imperishable.

It might seem that having such an unchanging object would make epistêmê the best disposition. Yet Heidegger asserts: “ἐπιστήμη is no βελτίστη ἕξις” (WC, 2). The reason, as Aristotle explains through referring explicitly to his teaching in the Posterior Analytics, is that epistêmê is demonstrative knowledge, and the principles from which it carries out its demonstrations, not being themselves demonstrable, do not belong to epistêmê but are made available only through induction (ἐπαγωγή). The implication is that this dependence on principles that it cannot itself access prevents epistêmê from being the best disposition. One can see that, in emphasizing Aristotle’s appeal to natural consciousness, Heidegger is intent on uncovering the experience that results in this conception of knowledge. We are reminded in this class of the goal of accessing the kind of dealings within which Aristotle finds his ontological determinations (WC, 1).

The next class of May 17 begins with the clarification that the present consideration of NE VI is purely ontological (WC, 3). Specifically, what is under consideration are the different possible ways of positioning oneself in relation to beings as unconcealed. The question is, again, which of these ways is the best in being most of all an alêtheuein. Answering this question requires, first, that we show the specific manner, the how, of each of the five possible ways of alêtheuein, as well as the telos of each. As Heidegger explains, what is at issue here is not only the kind of intentionality in each case but also the character of the object. Secondly, it must be determined if the way of alêtheuein under consideration is the highest in its determinate field of beings, or if it falls short, if there is something more that it cannot grasp. We already saw in the last class—and this is repeated now—that epistêmê fails because it does not possess through itself all that belongs to the being that is its object; the principles (ἀρχαί) of this being are hidden to it. Heidegger grants that epistêmê must in some sense have the principles, that they must be there for it; yet it does not proceed toward the principles, only from them. The principles are not its intentional object.

Heidegger now turns to chapter 4 and the consideration of technê. Given what we have learned about Heidegger’s overall interpretation of Aristotle, we must expect this chapter to pose a significant problem. It begins with Aristotle’s firm and unqualified assertion that praxis and poiêsis, along with their corresponding objects, are different (1140a2; ἕτερον). Given the problem this assertion poses for Heidegger’s thesis that Aristotle interprets being, and arrives at his ontological determinations, entirely from the perspective of poiêsis, we would expect Heidegger either to evade or greatly weaken this assertion, and, in a way, he does both. First, when Aristotle adds that “with regard to them [that is, πρᾶξις and ποίησις] we can believe even what is said in the outside discourses [ἐξωτερικοί λόγοι]” (1140a2–3), Heidegger interprets the latter phrase as meaning Gerede (WC4, idle talk, common talk, chatter). This gives the impression that the distinction is simply a popular and unphilosophical one. Yet the interpretation of exôterikoi logoi as Gerede is highly questionable. While there is little agreement in the literature as to the exact reference of the phrase, it is generally thought to refer to one of Aristotle’s exoteric works, such as one of his dialogues, which, if more popular than the lectures within the school, would hardly count as Gerede. Furthermore, Aristotle says that we can believe on this point even (καὶ) the exoteric discourses, which implies that there are other grounds, presumably philosophical ones, for the distinction. Aristotle will in this very chapter proceed to assert the distinction even more categorically, as we will see, and in the next chapter will defend it by claiming that a poiêsis is other than its end, telos, whereas a praxis is not (1140b6–7). Heidegger does acknowledge that some distinction is being maintained here, even if only a popular one, but then he interprets it in a way that makes it practically disappear, according to the Weiss transcript (Becker provides nothing on this point): “ποιεῖν [producing] and πρᾶττειν [acting] are both ways of taking-care [Besorgen]. ποιεῖν is to produce something [herstellen]; πρᾶττειν is to bring something about [verrichten]” (WC, 4). Since Heidegger in the winter semester translated poiôn (the producer) as “the person who brings something about [der etwas verrichtet],” whatever distinction is being acknowledged here is minor. Yet Heidegger’s claim that poiein and prattein are both types of Besorgen will be directly contradicted by Aristotle’s claim in the next chapter that praxis and poiêsis do not belong to the same genus (1140b3–4; ἄλλο τὸ γένος πράξεως καὶ ποιήσεως). If Aristotle in both the chapter dedicated to phronêsis and the preceding chapter dedicated to technê insists on the difference between the two, the aim of Heidegger’s interpretation is clearly the opposite: to minimize the difference to the point of making it practically disappear.

This is even more evident in how he treats the text in chapter 4 that immediately follows the reference to “exoteric discourses.” I translate it here for the sake of easy reference: “So that the practical [πρακτική] disposition with discourse [μετὰ λόγου] is different from [ἕτερον] the productive [ποιητική] disposition with discourse. Hence they are not included by each other [διὸ οὐδὲ περιέχεται ὑπ᾽ἀλλήλων]. For neither is πρᾶξις ποίησις nor is ποίησις πρᾶξις. Now since there is such a thing as the building art [οἰκοδομική τέχνη] and it is a productive disposition with discourse, and there is no art [τέχνη] that is not a productive disposition with discourse nor any such disposition that is not an art, art and a productive disposition with discourse would be the same thing” (1140a3–10). Heidegger comments on the first sentence, but only to say that Besorgen is μετὰ λόγου; it involves or includes discourse within it. Of the difference asserted between productive and practical dispositions—clearly Aristotle’s main point in the sentence—Heidegger says nothing at all. His comment on the next sentence is puzzling: he claims that the “by each other” (ὑπ᾽ἀλλήλων) relates only to the practical disposition or phronêsis. It is not entirely clear what is being claimed here, but we can make a good guess given the general direction of Heidegger’s interpretation: Aristotle is to be understood as claiming only that technê is not included by phronêsis and therefore as not denying that phronêsis can be included by technê. We have seen Heidegger repeatedly make poiêsis (and therefore technê) the broader category that includes all action. Heidegger comments on the final sentence in the passage above, claiming that technê is a way of speaking that also is a way of disclosing (ἀληθεύειν) and in the manner of its disclosing aims at production; its sight is fixed on what is producible. Heidegger’s commentary entirely skips the sentence in which Aristotle asserts that praxis is not a poiêsis and poiêsis is not a praxis. Given what we have already seen, it is hard to believe that this is a simple oversight or an accidental lacuna in the notes.³

As if to convince us that we are not dealing with an oversight here, the omission will repeat itself in Heidegger’s discussion of the rest of the chapter. He sees the remainder of the chapter as dealing with the question of whether technê is a disclosing that leaves nothing undisclosed, whether, that is, it is “most disclosing” (μάλιστα ἀληθευειν). The end of an art is the product: the ergon. But Heidegger points out that the art does not have the product “in hand”; the product falls outside of it. What the art possesses is only the eidos (the look) of what is to be produced, by which it can decide how it will produce it. In claiming that art is not concerned with things occurring by nature (1140a15; οὔτε τῶν κατὰ φύσιν), Aristotle indicates that the contrast is with nature. How does Heidegger interpret this contrast? Unlike technê, nature possesses its telos, possesses its product, because it is itself its own product: nature is self-production (WC, 6; Sich-Herstellen). What nature produces is unconcealed to it because it is itself. In contrast, the product of art remains concealed to it: the art possesses the look of the product, but the product itself falls outside it and is therefore hidden to it.⁴ Unless we understand this, asserts Heidegger, we cannot understand why Aristotle in this chapter associates technê with tuchê (1140a18). The reason, according to Heidegger, is that neither art nor luck possesses and therefore can disclose what they bring about (1140a18; rather than the reason Aristotle gives, that they concern the same objects: περὶ τὰ αύτά).⁵ Heidegger brings in here a claim that Aristotle will not make until chapter 7: that the virtue of technê is sophia (1141a12). This implies, for Heidegger, that technê itself is not a virtue whereas sophia is because contemplating is its own product or ergon; the product of sophia does not fall outside of it.

What is overlooked, even suppressed, in the explanation of this last point in terms of a contrast between technê, as producing something other than itself that it therefore does not control or disclose, and φύσις as self-production is once again Aristotle’s insistence, repeated now at 1140a16–17, that poiêsis and praxis are different (ἕτερον). Heidegger will address and comment on any distinction but this one. It is hard not to see here a deliberate strategy to subvert the central point of the chapter. The central point for Aristotle, which he repeats ad nauseum throughout, is the distinction between poiêsis and praxis and the corresponding distinction between technê and phronêsis. Heidegger completely ignores this point, instead making the central question of the chapter the extent to which technê is disclosive as a disposition.

When Heidegger, toward the end of the class, turns to chapter 5 and the discussion of phronêsis, he describes the latter as distinct from technê only in the way phusis is. Because what it takes care of (das zu Besorgende) is the human being itself, it possesses itself as its own product, it “has itself with itself like φύσις” (WC, 8).⁶ It can therefore also disclose its object. Through phronêsis, the situation in which I act is disclosed and myself in it. The class ends with Heidegger asserting that from here on phronêsis will become the major theme of Book VI.

The next class of June 1 (missing from Becker’s notes), instead of continuing with the reading of chapter 5, oddly returns to chapter 3. Only at the very end of the class will there be some reference to the very end of chapter 5 and only in the next class will Heidegger address the core of the chapter. Heidegger reiterates that the question of Book VI is which of the five ways of disclosing, alêtheuein, is the best. Citing Aristotle’s claim that we must determine which is the best hexis for each part of the rational soul (1139a15–16; ἑκατέρου τούτων), Heidegger concludes that only two of the five can be a best hexis, again citing Prantl 1852 as the only one to have understood this, though now adding that he nevertheless did not penetrate far enough here. Presumably what Prantl failed to grasp is that on which must be based any decision about the best disposition with regard to alêtheuein, namely, the nature of alêtheuein itself. Heidegger here gives us the following account: “ἀληθεύειν = having there something unconcealed, taking up a position in the face of it; to be so positioned in relation to a being that nothing is hidden in the region of being to which the ἕξις is assigned” (WC, 8). Heidegger then indicates how phronêsis might qualify as a best disposition on such an account of alêtheuein by briefly referring to two claims made in chapter 5. First, Aristotle, after identifying the principle of an action with the for-the-sake-of-which, claims that this principle does not appear (1140b18; οὐ φαίνεται ἀρχή) to the person ruined by pain and pleasure. This implies, of course, that the principle does appear to the phronimos. Indeed, the other passage is the immediately preceding one in which Aristotle appeals to the etymology of sôphrosunê as sôizousan tên phronêsin: “saving practical wisdom” (1140b11–13). Heidegger comments that “saving” here means “saving the ἀρχή, that it is disclosed” (WC, 8).

After these brief references, Heidegger returns to chapter 3 and now comments on a line he has not addressed before. After Aristotle lists the five ways in which the soul “discloses” (ἀληθεύει) in affirming and denying (in short, as Heidegger notes, μετὰ λόγου), he adds: “for opinion and supposition admit of being false” (1139b17–18; ὑπολήψει γὰρ καὶ δόξῃ ἐνδέχεται διαψεύδεσθαι). This is normally taken to be Aristotle’s explanation for why supposition (ὑπολήψις) and opinion (δόξα) are not included in the list of five. Thus W. D. Ross’s translation actually reads at this point: “we do not include judgment and opinion because in these we may be mistaken” (Ross 1925). This implies that the five dianoetic virtues mentioned, as forms of possessing the truth, cannot be mistaken. Heidegger’s interpretation, however, is the exact opposite: because the five dispositions of alêtheuein are all forms of supposing (hupolêpseis), they can all err and it is only this possibility of erring that enables them also to secure themselves in the truth; indeed, it is only this possibility of erring that can explain how there can be a best.⁷ Thus, in the transcript we read: “Precisely insofar as ἐπιστήμη and φρόνησις are ὑπολήψεις, precisely and only because they lay hold of something (λαμβάνειν), do they contain the possibility of a βέλτιστη ἕξις, of securing themselves, of persisting. Only insofar as they have the possibility of slipping [abzugleiten], do they also have the possibility of securing themselves, taking a position” (WC, 9). Furthermore, if these dispositions of the soul have the possibility of falling or slipping in seeking to possess the truth, this is because such a possibility belongs to the very being of the soul: “The five ways have the possibility of securing themselves insofar as it lies in the being of the ψυχή to be able to slip or fall” (WC, 10). We cannot speak of a best in unconcealing unless both failure and concealment belong to the very being of the soul. One could well object here that Heidegger is just perversely making Aristotle say the opposite of what he evidently says in the cited line. However, Heidegger could respond by citing, as he does in the seminar, 1140b31, where epistêmê is defined as a hupolêpsis concerned with universals, and 1142b33, where phronêsis is described as a true hupolêpsis of the end. It is certainly odd that Aristotle in chapter 3 would exclude hupolêpsis from a list of dispositions that includes epistêmê and phronêsis on account of its possibility of being false and then should go on to define epistêmê and phronêsis as being themselves hupolêpseis. One could say that Heidegger, instead of misinterpreting the text, is drawing attention to and making philosophically productive a tension existing in the text itself.

Now Heidegger again notes that the five ways of alêtheuein are articulated in terms of two factors: (1) the region of being each is supposed to keep hold of; (2) their relational and performative character. With regard to the first factor, the important distinction is between what is eternally so and what can be otherwise. Here again Heidegger makes a claim already seen to be central to his overall thesis that being = being-produced, namely, that this distinction is made from the perspective of productive comportment: “won from the fundamental experience of the world: being as being-produced. The ἀίδιον is a determinate being-produced. It is already there. I do not need first to produce it. The ἀίδιον and the πράκτον are ἔσχατα” (WC, 10). Heidegger makes a corresponding point regarding the second factor. First, he insists that each hexis of alêtheuein “is not something for itself, lies in determinate dealings.” This might not seem true of epistêmê since it frees itself of practical dealings and only concerns itself with making visible, with seeing; but here “seeing itself has become the concern [Besorgen], seeing itself the dealings [Umgang].” And what satisfies this only-seeing, this theôrein, is what is already there, what does not need to be produced, what is always there: the aidion. Here Heidegger reiterates what is for him the crucial point: “The ‘always-being’ is only an exceptional being-produced” (WC, 11), just as, we can add, contemplating is only an exceptional Umgang.

Which, then, of the five are the best dispositions? Heidegger now observes that in alêtheuein a being must be had with its principles (ἀρχαί). It is according to this criterion that both epistêmê and technê were seen to fail. But for Aristotle, that disposition that grasps and reveals the principles is nous. Nous sees only and always; it is pure energeia and excludes any dunamis. Correspondingly, its object is what always is. In this context, Heidegger finally says something, if very briefly and indirectly, about the “productive nous” of De Anima III.5. But nous is not the best disposition on account of two reasons that Heidegger presents, corresponding to the two factors listed above. First, nous “is constitutive for the being of human beings, but does not have the character of being of human beings” (WC, 12). This is because, as Heidegger has said repeatedly and reminds us here, nous is found in us only as dianoia or, we could add, only “with discourse” (μετὰ λόγου).⁸ Second, a principle or archê is always the archê of something, and therefore it always points away from itself. But nous does not itself grasp that for which the principles are principles; in this way, it does not really go toward the archai as archai. For both of these reasons, then, the best disposition cannot be nous itself, but rather a disposition that has nous.

One of these best dispositions, and the one corresponding to the “scientific” part of the rational soul, will therefore be sophia, which Aristotle defines as combining epistêmê and nous. But the other best disposition, the one corresponding to the “calculative” part, is phronêsis because, according to Heidegger, it too has nous. As evidence, Heidegger cites Aristotle’s claim at the end of chapter 5 that while forgetfulness (λήθη) is possible in the case of a disposition that is only “with discourse” (μετὰ λόγου), it does not exist in the case of phronêsis (1140b28–30). This is indeed what Aristotle says, but Heidegger’s interpretation is, to say the least, debatable. What prevents phro-nêsis from being only “with discourse” (μετὰ λόγου) could be, and most plausibly is, its dependence on good character, where character, unlike a logos, cannot be “forgotten”: Aristotle will repeatedly draw our attention to this dependence. No connection between phronêsis and nous has been made in chapter 5, and, when Aristotle in chapter 6 turns to nous, it will be to distinguish it from phronêsis (1141a5–8). This is what we would expect, given that, as Heidegger himself has noted, nous has as its object what is always, whereas phronêsis has as its object what can be otherwise.

What we see here is that Heidegger has no interest in the connection between phronêsis and good character or moral virtue. On one level, we should not be surprised because Heidegger has warned us from the start of the seminar that his consideration of NE VI would be purely ontological. Phronêsis concerns him only to the extent that it discloses what is and to the extent it possesses nous. Something else is striking in Heidegger’s reading. Heidegger insists that when Aristotle in the passage cited above speaks of a disposition that is only meta logou, he is referring to technê. Note what this means: having completely passed over the distinction between praxis and poiêsis on which Aristotle grounds the distinction between phronêsis and technê, the only distinction that Heidegger recognizes between phronêsis and technê is that the former possesses nous and the latter does not; the former has and discloses its end whereas the latter does not. Even if Heidegger does not explicitly say this, it is as if the relation between technê and phronêsis were like that between epistêmê and sophia.

The class ends with a statement made famous by Gadamer’s recollection. Gadamer was prevented by illness from coming to Freiburg for the winter semester of 1922/23, but he attended Heidegger’s seminars in the summer of 1923, including the present one. Gadamer’s recollection was as follows:

I met Heidegger in 1923. At that time he was still in Freiburg, and I participated in his seminar on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. We studied the analysis of phronesis. Heidegger pointed out to us in the text of Aristotle that every techne poses an intrinsic limit: its knowledge is not a full uncovering of something because the work it knows how to produce is delivered into the uncertainty of a use over which it does not preside. Then he began to discuss the difference that distinguishes all such knowledge, and especially mere doxa, from phronesis: λήθη τῆς μὲν τοιαύτης ἕξεως ἔστιν, φρονήσεως δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν. We were unsure of this sentence and completely unfamiliar with the Greek concepts; as we groped for an interpretation, he declared brusquely: “That is the conscience!” (Gadamer 1976, 201)

Gadamer’s recollection is sufficiently precise that, thanks to the Weiss transcript, we can date it to the class of June 1, in which Heidegger reiterated the conclusion reached in the previous class regarding the limitation of technê. Heidegger also made the connection between phronêsis and Gewissen (conscience), as we will now see. Regarding the kind of connection Heidegger made, however, the Weiss transcript does not exactly agree with Gadamer’s recollection. While Gadamer recalls Heidegger simply declaring brusquely that phronêsis is Gewissen, what we read in the notes is only the following: “The phenomenon that Aristotle saw here was later explained as Gewissen” (WC, 13). This is immediately followed by references to the term suneidêsis in the New Testament, the term sunderêsis in Thomas Aquinas, and the notion of the “spark of the soul” (Fünklein) in the Mystics (though not named, Meister Eckhart is clearly the main reference here). According to the transcript, then, Heidegger most definitely was not saying that phronêsis is Gewissen; rather, it was transformed into Gewissen by way of a long tradition of reception and interpretation. Indeed, the claim is even weaker than that: it is not phronêsis that is interpreted as “conscience” in the New Testament, in medieval philosophy, and in the Mystics, but rather other Greek terms that come to take its place.

What then of Gadamer’s recollection of what he calls a “pedagogical overstatement”? I am inclined to trust notes written at the time of the seminar over Gadamer’s memory decades later.⁹ We can also well imagine that what really struck Gadamer was the connection made between phronêsis and Gewissen, and it was therefore this connection that remained in his memory long after the context and the qualifications had been forgotten. However, Gadamer’s memory of 1923 could also be filtered through the Sophist course of 1924/25, in which Heidegger does make a stronger and less qualified claim. Referring to Aristotle’s claim that there is no lêthê of phro-nêsis, Heidegger asserts, “The explanation Aristotle gives here is indeed very succinct. But it is nevertheless clear from the context that one does not go too far in one’s interpretation if one says that Aristotle has here hit upon the phenomenon of conscience. Phronêsis is nothing other than the conscience that makes an action transparent when set in motion. Conscience is something one cannot forget” (GA19, 56). Heidegger is expressing, in a more extreme form (“nothing other than”!) while dropping the intervening history, the connection that the 1923 transcript presents as more distant and mediated. Gadamer explains this connection when he notes that in Being and Time “it is the call of conscience that first makes ‘Dasein in the human being’ manifest in its ontological and temporal event-structure” (202). Recall that in the 1923 seminar, phronêsis is being described as a best disposition of alêtheuein in that it fully discloses its object along with the principle of this object. But as Heidegger claimed at the end of the previous class, and as will be further explained in the classes that follow, the object of phronêsis, that with which it is concerned, is the human being itself, and the principle it discloses with the human being is that for the sake of which the human being is. As Heidegger has said, phronêsis discloses human being and the situation in which humans find themselves. It is not hard, therefore, to see the connection with the claim in Sein und Zeit that “the conscience discloses and therefore belongs in the sphere of the existential phenomena that constitute the being of the There as disclosedness [Das Gewissen erschließt und gehört deshalb in den Umkreis der existentialen Phämomene, die das Sein des Da als Erschlossenheit konstituieren]” (270). This is the connection asserted more emphatically in the Sophist course.¹⁰ But beyond this generic similarity, Heidegger’s subsequent analysis of “the call of conscience” and “being-guilty” clearly owe nothing to Aristotle’s phronêsis and much to the Christian tradition considered an indispensable intermediary in the 1923 seminar. This is presumably why Heidegger’s analysis of Gewissen in Sein und Zeit makes no reference to the notion of phronêsis in Aristotle, not even in a note on previous interpretations of Gewissen (SZ, 273n3).

The next class of June 7 begins with the claim that phronêsis is the theme of Book VI from chapter 7 until the end, now supported with a breakdown of the chapters: 7, 8, and 9 demarcate phronêsis from sophia, “political science” (πολιτική), and epistêmê, respectively, whereas 10 and 11 provide a positive analysis. Heidegger then returns to chapter 5 and the claim he has ignored so far: that phronêsis concerns the “things good and useful for oneself” (1140a26–27; περὶ τὰ αὐτῷ ἀγαθὰ καὶ συμφέροντα). Heidegger further notes Aristotle’s specification that we are not speaking here of what is good or useful toward some particular end, but what is such toward living well as a whole (1140a28; πρὸς τὸ εὖ ζῆν ὅλως). The importance of this qualification for Heidegger becomes clear when he interprets the relation “being-toward-living-well-as-a-whole” as Bedeutsamkeit (significance). Heidegger, as we would expect, is interpreting phronêsis ontologically as a way of being-in-the-world. Thus, after the reference to Bedeutsamkeit, we read the following: “Caring [Sorgen] is the manner of being of life, originally and genuinely being positioned in the world. Life cannot at all be in any other way than as in a world. That one must see” (WC, 13–14; cf. Becker II, 48). Interpreted in this context, phronêsis is nothing other than the human being’s way of being in the world and with others. Thus, we immediately read after the above: “Φρόνησις constitutes the genuine being of human beings in the πόλις. See the heart of the matter!” (WC, 14).

But what of the “well” (εὖ)? Aristotle describes phronêsis as directed not toward living, but toward living well. Heidegger says only that “the εὖ concerns the whole manner in which I am in the world” (WC, 14). But is it a specific modification of being in the world and, if so, of what kind? Heidegger mentions the concept of eupraxia (acting well), introduced by Aristotle in chapter 5 to explain the aim of phronêsis (1140b7). But Heidegger’s interpretation is revealing: “εὐπραξία is only a sharper formulation of concrete being in the world” (WC, 14; same claim in Becker II, 49). Only? The implication is that eupraxia has nothing to do with acting well but expresses only, in a particularly emphatic way, concrete being in the world. Indeed, we have here again one of Heidegger’s presumably intentional oversights. Aristotle introduces eupraxia to oppose it to poiêsis, explaining that eupraxia is its own telos, whereas poiêsis is other (ἕτερον) than its telos. Of this distinction there is not a word from Heidegger.¹¹ Not only does he interpret phronêsis as a way of being in the world, but he takes his model for such being, as we have repeatedly seen, from poiêsis. Significantly, when Heidegger proceeds to characterize hexis as a way of getting around in the world interpreted as a way of being, he suggests that Aristotle himself did not get far enough in determining the ontological character of hexis (WC, 14).¹²

After referring again to the description in chapter 5 of how the archê can be hidden through pleasure and pain, Heidegger moves on to the account of sophia in chapter 7. After noting that sophia, though not nous, is something that has nous and that its objects are the things in highest standing, Heidegger skips ahead to the end of the chapter and the claim there that phronêsis must know “the particulars” (1141b15; τὰ καθ᾽ἕκαστα). This remains the focus until the end of the class. What is thereby skipped is the contrast between sophia and phronêsis that takes up most of the chapter. To explain the role of particulars, Heidegger moves ahead to the contrast between the phronimos and the mathematician in chapter 8. The mathematician does not proceed according to each thing (καθ᾽ἕκαστα), but abstracts from this, looks away from it; this is why young people with little or no experience can be mathematicians (1142a17–20). The kath’hekaston regards “each (but not each in the sense of completeness and totality but) the current particular [Jeweilige] which I have when I tarry [verweile] with it” (WC, 16). But as Heidegger notes, Aristotle also claims that phronêsis is of the eschaton (the outermost) (1142a24). While Aristotle identifies this eschaton with the prakton (what is to be done) (1142a25), Heidegger interprets it as a more specific determination of the hekaston: it is “the decisive particularity [Jeweiligkeit], an extreme ἕκαστον” (WC, 16; cf. Becker II, 51). Of this eschaton there can only be perception (αἴσθησις), as Aristotle says (1142a26–27) and Heidegger notes. Aristotle immediately adds that this cannot be perception in the usual sense (in other words, perception of individual sensibles like color or sound), but Heidegger does not note this here.¹³ Instead he closes the class by claiming that the eschaton is where phronêsis arrives at its end, takes a stand (1142a29–30; στήσεται γὰρ κἀκεῖ), and begins to act.

Given the avoidance so far of the distinction between poiêsis and praxis, it comes as something of a surprise to see the next class of June 14 open with precisely this distinction. We read: “In ποίησις the τέλος is παρά, it falls outside of the dealings [Umgang]. In πρᾶξις the τέλος has the same character as the dealings” (WC, 16).¹⁴ But if Heidegger here recognizes praxis as being its own telos, it is only in identifying both with the same Umgang, the same dealing with and taking care of things in the world, that characterizes poiêsis. If, as we have seen, phronêsis differs from technê for Heidegger only in possessing nous of that which is hidden to technê, and if phronêsis thus appears as simply a more complete, better disposition of alêtheuein than technê, then is not praxis simply a more complete poiêsis? Indeed, immediately before the cited sentence expressing their difference, the transcript for this class begins with a statement of what they have in common: “ποίησις and πρᾶξις have in view, go toward, that which is to be taken care of [das zu Besorgende], what is not yet there” (WC, 16). The identification of the object of both poiêsis and praxis with what is not yet there assimilates both to production. The acknowledgement of a difference does not represent a departure from what has been seen to be the overall thesis of the seminar.

The relation between phronêsis and technê receives some further clarification when Heidegger reminds us that the question is to what extent phronêsis is that disposition in which its object (what can be otherwise) is genuinely there (that is, to what extent it is a best disposition of alêtheuein). Though oddly neither the Weiss nor the Becker transcripts provide textual references for this class, it is clear that Heidegger is discussing chapter 9, which, dedicated to the notion of good deliberation (εὖ βουλεύεσθαι), concludes with the following sentence: “If having deliberated well belongs to the phronimoi, good deliberation [εὐβουλία] would be correctness [ὀρθότης] concerning what contributes to the end, of which phronêsis would be the true supposition” (1142b31–33). Such supposition about what promotes the end, resulting from deliberation, will take the form of a decision or choice (προαίρεσις). Heidegger first makes the important claim that proairesis is the fundamental phenomenon; nous and orexis do not precede it, but are only its “explicata” (WC, 17; cf. Becker II, 53). We already saw in the previous semester Heidegger seeking and finding the unity of thought and desire in proairesis; it is this unity he is now declaring to be the fundamental phenomenon. “Choice” is “thinking desire” or “desiring thought,” not because it is a combination of thought and desire, but because it is the unity of both within which it first becomes possible to distinguish them. But how are we to understand the object of such choice, the “choosable” (αἱρετόν)? We read: “The αἱρετόν is completely concrete, a completely determinate situation is given in advance, and therein lies a circumspection. For example, wanting to bring someone joy is the ἀρχή of φρόνησις, buying books, and so forth—Books, stores, and so forth are already there, beings are there for the sake of the αἱρετόν, διὰ τοῦτο. Also a ποίησις belongs here, also διὰ τοῦτο” (WC, 17). The point of the last remark appears to be the following: as the bookstores are there for the sake of buying books, so the paper is there for the sake of producing books. We have the same “through this” (διὰ τοῦτο) relation in both cases. This sheds light on what Heidegger earlier described as common to both poiêsis and praxis: what is there is there for the sake of what is not yet there. As Heidegger now observes: “In the determinate ‘not yet’ is also seen what is already there. The objects are there overall only as possibly coming into consideration” (WC, 18).

It is in this context that Heidegger again addresses the difference between phronêsis and technê. In the transcript the difference is stated as follows: “The τέλος of φρόνησις is already there with it, namely, its ἐσχατόν; the πρᾶξις. . . . The case is different with τέχνη: when it is at an end (of deliberation), the shoe is not yet there” (WC, 18).¹⁵ At first glance this distinction is puzzling. Heidegger a little earlier described the eschaton of phronêsis as the outer limit of deliberation and the beginning of action, giving as an example going to the bookstore. When deliberation results in the decision to go to the bookstore, one has not yet gone to the bookstore. How does this differ from the shoemaker having through deliberation reached the conclusion to make the shoe and the shoe not yet being made? As we have seen Heidegger claim, the “not yet” characterizes both poiêsis and praxis. The words in the transcript make Heidegger’s point appear to be that in the case of phronêsis the decision immediately results in the action (in deciding to go to the bookstore I immediately go to the bookstore), whereas in the case of technê something can intervene to prevent the shoe from being made after the decision has been made to produce it. This is also supported by the fact that in the middle of the two claims just cited concerning phronêsis and technê we read, “For πρᾶξις τύχη [luck] is irrelevant.” In Becker we read the contrasting claim: “In the case of ποίησις in contrast we have the possibility of bad luck” (II, 54). Yet, it is not at all clear that chance is any less of a factor in possibly preventing an action I have decided to perform than it is in possibly preventing the production of something I have decided to produce. Another interpretation of Heidegger’s point is suggested by what has already been claimed earlier in the seminar and what is stated in Gadamer’s recollection cited above: that the shoe is not a shoe until used as such and this use falls outside of the technê of making it. Indeed, in the talk Heidegger delivered in December 1924, “Being-There and Being-True in Aristotle,” he says precisely this, using the same example: while the shoe is the telos of shoemaking, “Aristotle says that the shoe no longer belongs to the shoemaker as shoemaker. Rather, the meaning of the shoe is precisely as an object of use” (Kisiel 2011, 226; interestingly, Heidegger gives there also the same example as here for phronêsis: delighting a friend).¹⁶ For this reason, in making the shoe the shoemaker is delivering it to something beyond his control so that “chance” can indeed intervene.

The distinction between phronêsis and technê is made simply a matter of the former possessing its object more fully and securely than the latter (and we have already seen this to be Heidegger’s position). This means that the distinction is not based on a fundamental difference between praxis and poiêsis, as it is for Aristotle (recall that he does not see them as even belonging to the same genus); instead, the distinction is between a producing (aiming at a “not yet”) that fully possesses its product because it is the product, and a producing (aiming at a “not yet”) whose product is independent of it and therefore subject to fortune.

The rest of the class is devoted to the main topic of chapter 9, that is, euboulia (good deliberation) as the “bringing about of the accomplishment [Durchführung des Vollzugs] of φρόνησις” (WC, 18).¹⁷ Euboulia is fundamentally a searching (ζητεῖν) that has as its object both what is sought (das Gesuchte) and that through which or where it is sought (das Besuchte). As Heidegger claims, “everything through which I arrive at the ἐσχατόν is object of εὐβουλία” (WC, 19). This means that for such a searching, the world is there as something looked for and looked through. That searching is the fundamental character of euboulia is shown by the fact that it is this that distinguishes it from the other states to which Aristotle contrasts it in chapter 9. It is not eutuchia (good luck) because the latter is a finding without searching.¹⁸ It is not agchinoia (sagacity) because this, as a form of having something present to one’s spirit (Geistesgegenwart), is also a having without searching. It is not doxa (opinion) because while this is, like euboulia, directed toward something (Ausgerichtetsein), it is not a searching. Finally, it is not epistêmê (scientific knowledge) because this disposition, having as its object what cannot be otherwise, possesses its object as it is and does not need to seek it.¹⁹ An aside by Heidegger merits reproduction: “The opening for understanding the Greek conception of science is to be sought here; the determination that science concerns the καθόλον is only secondary and understandable only from here. This remains valid only for Greek science. Nonsensical adoption of this conception of science in our case; question regarding the scientific character of laws—the search for laws.” (WC, 19) The point here is that the Greek conception of science depends on a conception of being (a conception of being as what does not need to be produced and is always there) and that it is therefore nonsensical to adopt this conception of science without the ontological basis and with no understanding of it. It is in any case in contrast to such a conception of science that Aristotle explains the notion of euboulia as a searching.

What of the eu, the “well,” in eu bouleuesthai (deliberating well)? Heidegger’s one comment in this class is that it “designates the whole process that is determined back from the προαιρετόν” (WC, 17). But this presumably does not distinguish it from bad deliberation. Aristotle himself speaks of “correctness” in the case of good deliberation. How are we to understand this correctness? In the next class of June 21, Heidegger says a little more. “ὀρθότης [correctness] means: to bring the current situation to transparency from the τέλος as ἀρχή [Durchsichtigkeit]” (WC, 20). One might of course object that such transparency could equally be brought about by deliberation aimed at a bad end and therefore by bad deliberation in this sense. Heidegger presumably would respond by noting again Aristotle’s claim that to the person corrupted by pain and pleasure, and thus to the person lacking phronêsis and the euboulia on which it depends, the archê simply does not appear (1140b18; οὐ φαίνεται). What makes the deliberation not good is not that it is directed toward a bad principle or end, but rather that the end or principle is hidden to it as is also what promotes the end. Heidegger adds that euboulia is the “explicit appropriation” of what is indicated in the archê and that its “correctness” lies in looking down from the archê upon the sumpheron (the advantageous). This euboulia and its bringing of the entire situation into transparency is “the concrete carrying out of φρόνησις [konkreter Vollzug]” (WC, 20). Heidegger in this context comments on an important sentence in which Aristotle makes clear that arriving at the right end is not sufficient for euboulia: “But it is possible to hit upon the good with a false syllogism, and to hit upon what one should do but not the means by which one should, but for the middle determination [μέσον ὅρον] to be false” (1142b22–24). What this shows, according to Heidegger, is that “not only the What but also the How is decisive” (WC, 20). This passage also shows that to the disclosing of the situation—Heidegger identifies the “middle determination” with the logos that illumines the situation—belongs the possibility of covering it up. The euboulia that concretely carries out phronêsis is an alêtheuein that discloses both the principle and what in the current situation contributes to it, that in short fully discloses, but against the ever extant possibility of all this being covered up (ψευδή). If Heidegger thus identifies euboulia with a true or fully transparent boulia, he appears to do the same with praxis: “πρᾶξις itself should be ἀγαθόν: εὐπραξἰα” (WC, 21). “Good action” is simply action, presumably in the sense of true and genuine action: action to which nothing is hidden, for which the end and the situation are fully transparent.²⁰

Heidegger now turns to chapter 10 and the notion of sunesis (comprehension), which he characterizes as “accompanying understanding that follows” (mitgehender Nachverstehen).²¹ Referring to Aristotle’s description of sunesis as judging of what someone else says (1143a15; ἄλλου λέγοντος) concerning things with which phronêsis is concerned, Heidegger comments: “Therefore a new starting point here: the doer lives with another. . . . Having ‘understanding’ for the other in his world. His world becomes also my world. Being with the other; jointly and subsequently carrying out his φρονεῖν [mitvollziehen, nachvollziehen]” (WC, 21).²² Heidegger a little later adds: “The world of the other is there for me; I concern myself with the world of the other” (WC, 22). Heidegger cites a passage in chapter 11 where Aristotle says that sunesis along with gnômê (consideration) and nous appear to be phusika, that is, things we have by nature, and interprets this to mean that the three are co-constitutive for the being of human beings. With regard to sunesis, Heidegger proceeds to note that it does not involve standing in the concrete situation and acting; it therefore does not presuppose phronêsis but is related to it in the way learning is related to scientific knowledge, that is, it can be a means of acquiring phronêsis. In itself, sunesis is purely perceptive (rein vernehmend). In contrast, gnômê is “co-deciding from the position of the other” (WC, 22). In gnômê, I oversee the concrete situation of the other to determine the epieikes, that is, what the other wanted to and reasonably could do in the situation. Since I must here myself decide what was the proper thing to do in this situation, I have the possibility of gnômê, Heidegger claims, only when I am myself a phronimos. Therefore, though both sunesis and gnômê are ways of sharing my world with others, only in the latter, Heidegger concludes, do “I position myself as a human being in relation to other human beings.” The first is the “formal phenomenon,” while the latter is “ontologically concrete” (WC, 23). Finally, gnômê can take the form of suggnômê. Claiming that this latter term has the accentuated character of forbearance (Nachsicht), Heidegger sees it as suggesting something important about the nature of human praxis: “I see that the person could not have acted differently under the circumstances. {?} fully concrete in view. So it belongs to human πρᾶξις that it in a certain way does not fully succeed [auskommt], in a certain way fails [scheitert]; Aristotle sees this” (WC, 23). Suggnômê is thus possessing understanding for the limits of all human alêtheuein and therefore all human praxis; human action fails to the extent that in a concrete situation the end and what promotes the end are hidden, to the extent that the situation is not fully transparent.

The very end of the class starts into chapter 13 where it is asked of both sophia and phronêsis what they are good for (1143b18; τί χρήσιμοί). This question is rendered particularly puzzling when Heidegger, reminding us that hexis is “a way of being of life,” asserts that “σοφία and φρόνησις are the fundamental ways of being of human beings” (WC, 23).²³ Since it makes little sense to claim that our fundamental way of being is good for this or that in particular, Heidegger asserts that the “good for” (χρήσιμοι) is “spoken absolutely,” where this presumably means ontologically: what do sophia and phronêsis contribute to our being? Even if the ti suggests that chrêsimoi is not “spoken absolutely” (good for what?), Heidegger, in pursuing the reading of chapter 13 into the next class of June 28, will again interpret the usefulness in question here as usefulness for the being of human beings (WC, 24; Tauglich: für die εὐδαιμονία, f. d. Sein des Menschen, f. sein ἦθος).Yet he suggests that the objection against the usefulness of phronêsis depends on not taking this perspective. The objection equates phronêsis with a mere “having-in-view” or “being-knowledgeable,” with a “knowing” (1143b24; εἰδέναι) in the emptiest and most indifferent sense of this word, so that it is even something that someone can possess for me (1143b30–31)—something Heidegger declares to be an “ontological impossibility.” The objection takes an equally superficial view of praxis, judging it simply in terms of results. This superficial perspective is what gives rise to the question, What does merely having something in view have to do with results? “This manner of consideration overlooks the object: the being of the human being: ζωή πρακτική τίς (A6)” (WC, 25; the reference is to 1097b34–1098a4).

Heidegger notes that Aristotle’s first response to the objection is that sophia and phronêsis as virtues are good in themselves, good in their very being, even if they did not produce anything (1144a3). But what interests Heidegger is Aristotle’s second reply, which is that they do produce something (1144a3; καὶ ποιοῦσι). This is because, as we have seen, it is important for Heidegger’s reading that phronêsis be understood in terms of production; so here he declares that “φρόνησις is a way of ποιεῖν” (WC, 25), as is sophia. But what kind of ποιεῖν? As Heidegger himself asks, “If they both comprise a producing [Herstellen], what possible meaning [can] a ποιεῖν [have] in a ἕξις?” We can reformulate: how can a way of being be understood as a producing? If sophia and phronêsis constitute the being of human beings, what sense does it make to say that they produce something? Heidegger’s answer is of great importance: “The ontological relation [Seinsverhältnis] to what they produce [herstellen] is not that of a being-knowledgeable [Bescheidwissen] to something produced, but the being of σοφία and φρόνησις is in the case of a possible ποιεῖν of the same character as what is to be produced” (WC, 26). Heidegger is interpreting Aristotle’s claim that sophia and phro-nêsis produce not as medicine produces health, but as health produces health (1144a4–5). Yet health produces health in the sense of being health. The point is that sophia and phronêsis produce happiness only in the sense of themselves being or constituting happiness.²⁴ But then should we continue speaking of “production” here? Or rather, does it make any sense in this context to continue translating poiein as herstellen, as Heidegger does? Aristotle explicitly says that poiein is not to be understood here in the sense of medicine producing health, which means that it is not to be understood in terms of technical production. Here again we encounter an apparent obstacle to Heidegger’s central thesis that being is interpreted as being-produced by Aristotle (and the Greeks in general). Heidegger observes that the example of “health” is not an arbitrary one because the Greeks understood health as a way in which a human being finds herself and thus as a mode of being (and Greek medicine, he adds, still had a much more original and primitive relation to the being of human beings than modern medicine does). But the “health” used here to express the being of human beings is contrasted with the relation of an art producing health; it is not health as produced by something else, but health as “producing,” which is to say, just being itself.²⁵ Sophia is the being of human beings, or rather, a part of this being in the sense of a specific way of being for a human being: Aristotle writes that it is “part of the whole of virtue” (1144a5; μέρος οὖσα τῆς ὅλης ἀρετῆς) and Heidegger comments (after an excursus on the meaning of ὅλον in Metaphysics V.26) that the last phrase expresses “the whole being of human beings.” Furthermore, as Heidegger cannot help noting, Aristotle introduces another model, one distinct from the model of production, for understanding the poiein of sophia and phronêsis when he claims that the former produces happiness through being-possessed and being-active (1144a6): “τῷ ἔχεσθαι καὶ τῷ ἐνεργεῖν: that is the ποιεῖν of σοφία” (WC, 26). The model here is not poiêsis; it is energeia that, being its own end, achieves its end simply in being possessed.²⁶ Here again the distinction between poiêsis and praxis that Heidegger has been seen to pass over or minimize appears to impose itself.

The class ends with Heidegger’s observation that phronêsis “belongs to” praxis because, as Aristotle says, one does not act virtuously if one simply does the act prescribed by law unwillingly or out of ignorance or for some reason other than for the sake of the act itself: one must be in a certain state (1144a18; πῶς ἔχοντα) when one acts. Heidegger refers in this context to Kant’s distinction between legality and morality and a parallel Scholastic distinction (WC, 27). Before leaving this class, it should be noted that all Heidegger says here about the distinction between phronêsis and sophia is that the former is characterized at 1143b34 as being “worse” (χείρων) than the latter (WC, 25), presumably because it has as its object what admits of being otherwise. Heidegger adds that Plato could not have undertaken the present inquiry because “he did not see κίνησις.”

The final class of July 5 opens with Heidegger identifying as the explicit problem of chapter 13 the question of what phronêsis contributes to praxis. But he immediately adds what he clearly considers the deeper, implicit, ontological problem: “Fundamental: to see the way of being” (WC, 27). Heidegger can then be seen to recapitulate and expand on the ontological reading presented in the previous class in a passage of the transcript that needs to be cited here in full: “The ποιεῖν is not like bringing something about [Verrichten], but as health makes a human being healthy, preserves him in being healthy. φρόνησις brings what lives into a way of being (does not merely contribute something to it) and indeed in the manner of circumspection [Sich-Umsehen]. From the outset φρόνησις is a being-positioned before one’s world—man is brought into his genuine stand through φρόνησις” (WC, 27). The full significance of this conclusion becomes apparent only if one recalls that Verrichten has been Heidegger’s translation of prattein (doing), a translation meant to bring it closer to poiein translated as herstellen, indeed as a kind of this poiein. Now we see that the poiein of phronêsis can be interpreted neither as a herstellen, in the way that medicine produces health, nor even as any kind of verrichten: instead, what phronêsis does is let a human being be in the sense of being-in-a-world as itself a certain being-positioned vis-à-vis the world. What, then, does this “doing” have to do with poiêsis?

Since Heidegger takes the characterization of virtue as a “disposition” (ἕξις) to identify it with a way of being, he interprets the relation between virtue and phronêsis discussed in chapter 13 to be as close as possible. A very important passage here is the following: “For [virtue] is not only [a disposition] in accordance with [kata] the right account, but the disposition with [meta] the right account is virtue. The correct account regarding such things is practical wisdom” (1144b26–28; ἔστι γὰρ οὐ μόνον ἡ κατὰ τὸν ὀρθὸν λόγον, ἀλλ᾽ἡ μετὰ τοῦ ὀρθοῦ λόγου ἕξις ἀρετή ἐστιν. ὀρθὸς δὲ λόγος περὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἡ φρόνησις ἐστιν). Heidegger interprets the distinction here between kata and meta as showing that phronêsis is in the way of being that is aretê in the sense of co-constituting it (WC, 27; macht es mit aus). It is from this perspective that we must understand another important and easily misinterpreted claim Aristotle makes: “For virtue makes the goal correct, phronêsis that which contributes to the goal” (1144a7–9; ἡ γὰρ ἀρετὴ τὸν σκοπὸν ποιεῖ ὀρθόν, ἡ δὲ φρόνησις τὰ πρὸς τοῦτον). This is sometimes taken to mean that the relation between virtue and practical wisdom is a purely instrumental and therefore external one: virtue identifies the end and practical wisdom only figures out the means for reaching this end. Heidegger refers to Jaeger as defending such a view (see Jaeger 1923, 252n1) and calls it “pure nonsense! [purer Unsinn!]” (WC, 29). This reading indeed makes nonsense of Aristotle’s insistence in the other passage that virtue is “with” (μετά) and not simply “in accordance with” (κατά) the logos that is phronêsis. Furthermore, the skopos (the aim) that virtue provides is something I must look to and what provides this sight except phronêsis? In a passage Heidegger refers to, Aristotle calls phronêsis “the eye of the soul,” interpreted by Heidegger as a “being-open-for” (ein Aufgeschlossensein für) and, while Aristotle states in the same passage that it cannot become a disposition without virtue,²⁷ it seems equally true that virtue would be blind without phronêsis. The latter, furthermore, does not merely disclose the means, but, as we have seen, makes the whole concrete situation along with the end transparent.

In this context, Heidegger also introduces the concept of deinotês (cleverness, shrewdness) Aristotle discusses in this chapter. Phronêsis is not the same as deinotês, but it incorporates it into the disposition of virtue. Heidegger interprets this deinotês as both resolution (Entschlossenheit) and openness (Aufgeschlossensein), thus anticipating his analysis of resoluteness in Sein und Zeit (WC, 28). As a disposition of deinotês that brings virtue to decision and disclosure, phronêsis accomplishes what Heidegger characterizes as “its primary task”: “the ἔχειν of the ἀρχή. (Preserving and holding)” (WC, 28). Recall that this is what makes phronêsis a best alêtheuein. We see again why Heidegger considers “pure nonsense” the view that phronêsis only deals with instrumental means.

Heidegger also draws our attention to the role of the notion of dunamis in this chapter, as well he would, given the importance we have seen him give this notion since the seminar of 1921 as a determination of our being and the being of all life. First, we have Aristotle’s claim that deinotês is a dunamis and that phronêsis, though it is not this dunamis, cannot be without it (1144a28–29). Heidegger comments that a hexis always develops out of a dunamis that exists by nature and toward genuine being (WC, 28). Then we have Aristotle’s discussion of natural virtue (ἡ φύσικη ἀρετή) and his observation that “it appears that each of the characters belongs to all in a way by nature” (1144b4–5; πᾶσι γὰρ δοκεῖ ἕκαστα τῶν ἠθῶν ὑπάρχειν φύσει πως). Heidegger’s comment is that virtue as a hexis, as a “how of having-come-to-be,” has a dunamis by nature. But as Aristotle goes on to claim, these “natural virtues” or characters would appear destructive without nous (1144b9; ἀλλ᾽ἄνευ νοῦ βλαβεραὶ φαίνονται οὖσαι) and therefore require phronêsis to be virtues in the strict or ruling sense (κυρίως). As Heidegger comments, “φρόνησις (νοῦς) is constitutive in the γένεσις toward a ἕξις” (WC, 29). Again, phronêsis is not something external to virtue only procuring means to its ends, but is essential to the development of a virtuous, that is, genuine disposition out of our natural powers.

Heidegger next claims that what is in view here (which is to say, with the reference to phronêsis [νοῦς]) is proairesis and cites the identification of virtue of character with a “ἕξις προαιρετική” (disposition of choosing) at 1139a22–23 as well as the passage from De motu animalium cited in the previous semester (and in which proairesis is listed as a source of movement and then arguably analyzed into the only real sources: thought and desire). We are thus reminded of Heidegger’s thesis that the movement that constitutes the being of a human being is proairesis understood as the fundamental phenomenon that unifies thought and desire or, rather, represents their unity before their distinction.

With this the seminar appears to reach its conclusion. “Appears” because there is more in the transcript, but separated from the rest through bold, solid lines. These notes are also puzzling. They refer to the Eudemian Ethics, and the reason is at first clear. We read the claim that “insofar as the being-moved [Bewegtsein] of a human being is προαίρεσις, he can be determined as an ἀρχή.” We then have a reference to the Eudemian Ethics in which a human being is indeed characterized as an archê. The passage merits being cited in full since in this characterization it opposes a human being to other living things: “All natural substances are some kind of principles [τινὲς ἀρχαὶ], so that each one can generate others like it, such as a human being a human being and living things as whole living things and plants, plants. In addition, a human being alone among living things is the principle of certain actions [πράξεων τινών ἐστιν ἀρχὴ]. We speak of none of the other living things as acting” (1222b15–20; πράττειν). Just a little below Aristotle concludes: “the human being is the principle of a certain motion. For praxis is a motion” (1222b28–29; ὁ δ᾽ἄνθρωπος ἀρχὴ κινήσεως τινός. ἡ γὰρ πρᾶξις κίνησις). One can well see why this text would interest Heidegger and why he would see it as supporting his interpretation, though unfortunately no commentary on the passage is preserved. What is odd is the subsequent suggestion that the students read Eudemian Ethics VII.14, which is generally now, since the Susemihl edition (1884) Heidegger is using and as he notes, Book VIII, chapter 2. They are asked specifically to read 1248a29ff. This is odd because this text appears to contradict the claim that a human being is the principle of their actions. Right before the line at which Heidegger asks the students to start reading, Aristotle asks, “τίς ἡ τῆς κινήσεως ἀρχὴ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ” (1248a25; what is the principle of motion in the soul) and responds that, as in the whole cosmos it is god, so in us it is the divine element (27; τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν θεῖον). In the passage Heidegger cites, Aristotle proceeds to claim that those who succeed and act well without logos or deliberation possess this principle that is stronger than thought and deliberation (32; ἔχουσι γὰρ ἀρχὴν τοιαύτην ἣ κρείττων τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τῆς βουλεύσεως). And the question arises because of Aristotle’s claim that thought cannot be the principle of thought or deliberation the principle of deliberation without an infinite regress (21–22; ούκ ἄρα τοῦ νοῆσαι ὁ νοῦς ἀρχή, οὐδὲ τοῦ βουλεύσασθαι βουλή). So this leaves the principle to be either chance (τύχη) or god. Does this not then contradict Heidegger’s contention that a human being is understood as archê?²⁸ The solution might lie in how Heidegger understands the place of this book in Aristotle’s corpus. Citing the view of Spengel (1841, 1843; 1864, 1866) that the Eudemian Ethics was a reworking of the Nicomachean Ethics and the opposite view of Jaeger that it was an earlier work, Heidegger himself claims that “nothing with certainty is to be made out concerning the relation of the two ethics to each other” WC, 30). He finds Jaeger’s developmentalist hypothesis in particular premature (verfrüht) and dangerous (gefährlich), as well as misguided by the attempt to find a “norm ethics” in Aristotle. However, Heidegger does claim that Book VIII of the Eudemian Ethics probably does not belong to it. Was this his way of dealing with the problematic passage? Did he think it was not by Aristotle? Unfortunately, on the basis of the transcript we cannot know.²⁹

As this conclusion of the seminar makes clear, the focus of the 1923 reading of NE VI is not only phronêsis, but phronêsis as constituting the being of human beings, where this being is interpreted in terms of that being-moved that is proairesis. We are still within the question inaugurated by the SS1921 seminar concerning the being of life, though now narrowed to the being of that living being called human being. This orientation explains the significant differences with the otherwise parallel reading of NE VI in the 1924/25 course on Plato’s Sophist. The notes have pointed to the many specific parallels between the two readings, but they only highlight by contrast the significant differences. The major one is that the reading of 1923 shows little interest in the distinction between phronêsis and sophia or in the superiority claimed by Aristotle for the latter, whereas this is the main focus of the 1924/25 reading. This brings with it significant differences in the characterization of phronêsis. If Heidegger in 1923, as we have seen, insists on the full integration of phronêsis into the hexis of the human being, citing Aristotle’s own insistence at 1144b26–28 that virtue is “with” (μετά) rather than simply “in accordance with” (κατά) phronêsis, Heidegger in 1924/25 ignores this passage and explains the inferiority of phronêsis as due to its not being fully independent (vollständig eigenständig) given its dependence on good character (GA19, 166). Accordingly, while Heidegger in 1923 takes, as we have seen, the objection at 1143b24 that we do not become more able to act through knowledge as a misunderstanding of phronêsis that wrongly equates it with “knowledge” in the emptiest sense of the term, citing the same passage in 1924/25 he there takes it to show that “the mere ἀληθεύειν of φρόνησις taken in itself contributes nothing to the action itself” (GA19, 167)—unless, that is, it is carried out by someone good. Likewise, while in 1923 Heidegger sees both phronêsis and sophia as “productive” in the way that health produces health, in 1924/25 he takes this claim to apply only to sophia and sees phronêsis in contrast as compared to the art of healing that produces health as something distinct from itself. The thesis that phronêsis constitutes the being of human beings in the polis in 1923 furthermore results in attention being paid to chapter 10 and its discussion of sunesis, gnômê, and suggnômê, whereas this chapter receives no attention in 1924/25. Finally, if proairesis is, as the unity of thought and desire, the “fundamental phenomenon” that underlies phronêsis in 1923, it receives little analysis in 1924/25.

These differences are clearly due in large part to the very different orientations: the reading of 1923 is carried out in the context of an ontology of life, while the reading of 1924/25 is carried out as preparation for the understanding of a Platonic scientific dialogue (GA19, 189). Whether the differences can be fully explained simply by appeal to these different orientations, however, is an open question. We still in the end have two rather different accounts of phronêsis in Aristotle. Whatever the explanation, the point to emphasize here is that we cannot get a full picture of Heidegger’s struggles with this notion without the 1923 seminar.

The greatest significance of the seminar, however, perhaps lies in something else we have noted in it: the very pronounced and systematic elision of the difference so insisted on by Aristotle between poiêsis and praxis. If in the 1924/25 course Heidegger gestures toward this distinction by interpreting the claim that praxis is its own telos as meaning that the prakton has the same kind of being as the alêtheuein whose object it is (GA19, 49), the 1923 seminar shows clearly how such an interpretation depends on continually passing over Aristotle’s own characterizations of the distinction. Because the 1923 reading sticks closer to the text, it also reveals more clearly what is not being read. To apply to Heidegger what he tended to say of other philosophers, his silences in this seminar as well as in others are as important, if not even more so, than what he says. While silence is indeed a tricky thing to infer from a student transcript, when it is as consistent as we have seen it to be here, occurring every time Aristotle’s text emphasizes the radical difference between praxis and poiêsis (one is simply not the other, they differ in genus), and when it is furthermore repeated in a course for which we have much more documentation, we can be confident that what we have in the transcript is not an oversight of transcription, but a true record of silence.