“bringing forth” in the Greek manner. The “bringing forth” of the essence, according to our preceding reflections, means first of all and polemically that the essence is not gleaned from the individual cases as their universal; it has its own origin. When we today speak of bringing forth, we think of the making and fabricating of an individual object. But this is precisely what is not intended; bringing forth—we use this expression intentionally—must be taken here quite literally. The essence is brought forth, brought out from its previous obscurity and hiddenness. Forth—into what? Into the light; it is brought into view. This bringing into view is a peculiar seeing. This seeing does not see by merely staring at what is present at hand or what is otherwise already accessible, but instead this seeing first brings before itself that which is to be seen. It is a seeing that draws something forth, not a mere looking at what is standing about waiting for people to come across as they go their way. It is not a mere noticing of something previously unheeded though otherwise observable without further ado. The seeing of the look that is called the idea is a seeing which draws forth, a seeing which in the very act of seeing compels what is to be seen before itself. Therefore we call this seeing, which first brings forth into visibility that which is to be seen, and produces it before itself, “productive seeing” [Er-sehen].1
This bringing forth or producing is not a fabricating or a making; hence it is indeed a coming across something. What we can come across must already lie before us. For the Greeks, “Being” means constant presence {Anwesenheit}, and therefore the essence, the whatness, is the most genuine of beings, the being-est of beings, ὄντως ὄν. Therefore the ideas are; indeed, they must be, as the most proper beings of all beings, in order to be able to be brought forth and put into the light, into the light in which that eye sees which casts views in advance. And it is in the circle of these views that we first grasp individual beings. The productive seeing of the essence is consequently not a conformity to something
1. [“Productive” is to be understood here in the sense in which, e.g., witnesses are “produced” in court—they are not created for the occasion but simply led forth, literally “pro-duced.”—Tr.]