relates itself to the πάντα. However, there is no mention of the Λόγος and its λέγειν. In fact, in this saying we hear words [349] that before now we have not heard. The saying speaks of γνώμη and κυβερνᾶν. It sounds strange that the to-be-known— that is, the Λόγος—is itself γνώμη, a word that we could initially and in a lexically correct way translate as “cognition.” If we were to understand the Λόγος in accordance with the accepted interpretation of it as reason and “world reason,” then the equating of the Λόγος and γνώμη, “reason” and cognition, would not pose the least difficulty. However, ὁ Λόγος is the originary sheltering forgathering. Yet, it is said of γνώμη that it steers. ‘Cognition’ as such does not ‘steer,’ insofar as ‘steering’ is an activity and a practice, whereas ‘cognition,’ in principle, remains ‘theoretical.’ This is what has led one translator to translate γνώμη as “the insightful will.”
It is therefore a matter of some luck that two sayings of Heraclitus’s have been preserved for us, one of which (namely, fragment 78) gives us the opportunity to reflect upon γνώμη and its essence. The other saying (fragment 64) tells us something about κυβερνᾶν, steering.
Fragment 78 states:
ἦθος γὰρ ἀνθρώπειον μὲν οὐκ ἔχει γνώμας, θεῖον δὲ ἔχει.
The sojourn—namely, of the human (amidst beings as a whole)—may not have γνώμαι: the godly, however, does.
In accordance with our earlier elucidation of ‘physics,’ ‘ethics,’ and ‘logic,’ we do not translate ἦθος as “moral disposition,” but rather as “sojourn” in the sense of dwelling amidst beings.
It is precisely this meaning that the word ἦθος also exhibits, and indeed most expressly, in another fragment of Heraclitus’s (fragment 119), which states: ἦθος ἀνθρώπωι δαίμων. This can be translated as: “For the human, his character is his daemon.” This translation surely thinks along lines that are modern, psychological, and characterological. The thought that, for the human, the inheritance of his disposition is what goads, drives, and stalks him may [350] be in some sense correct, and it certainly provides ample opportunity for mindful consideration. But this is not a reason for such a thought to be interpreted, without further ado, back into Heraclitus’s saying. Certainly, fragment 119 is to be counted among the most essential of all that have been handed down to us, and perhaps it could be sufficiently elucidated after an interpretation of Heraclitus’s thought as a whole has been completed. However, this indicates that fragment 119 must be thought together with that particular saying that I have named on another occasion as the first, and upon which any attempt to think-after the thinker Heraclitus as a whole must be grounded. (That is fragment 16.1) Fragment 78 states: the sojourn of the human
1 See The Inception of Occidental Thinking in this volume.
262 Logic: Heraclitus’s Doctrine of the Logos