amidst beings has no γνῶμαι. Properly understood, γνώμη means a particular manner of disposition: namely, one that allows beings to be encountered and become visible. γνώμη is a mood of the mind, thought of as a fundamental mood. However, “manner of disposition,” “constitution,” “mood,” and “fundamental mood” are all also contemporary conceptions, not far removed from the so-called ‘mental states’ that we dissect and examine psychologically. However, even if we do not think the essence of ‘constitution’ and ‘mood’ psychologically, but rather hold fast to what is ecstatically-disclosing and actively open within them, we must nevertheless take care not to translate γνώμη as one of these terms. The meaning of the word γνώμη is so rich and multifaceted that it contains all that we name as ‘constitution,’ whereby we are not equating disposition with the capability of sensation in a reductive way. Rather, we mean any kind of disposition to which one is disposed, so that γνώμη can mean decision and conviction, and also determination and vision. Any attempt at translation here risks a one-sidedness and remains burdened by it.
However, if fragment 78 states that, in distinction to the human sojourn, the divine sojourn has γνώμη, and if we consider that the sojourn of the gods [351] is the presence of those who peer in, and who do so in such a way that within what is espied by them and their gaze beings first appear; if this is the case, then γνώμη, insofar as it departs from the human sojourn, cannot indicate any old capability and conduct amongst others. To be sure, the human relates to beings and espies them in the light of being. However, this light of the lightening is not something that the human accomplishes on his own: rather, he only stands within this light. The preparing of what can be seen; the originary espying whereby what can be seen first comes into the open, and through which the open itself remains: this particular preparing-beforehand of the possibility of the appearance of beings is not of human origin. It is this preparing-beforehand that is meant by γνώμη. We could translate it using the Germanic word “ Rat ” [vision], thereby understanding it as what allows the encounter with the sight and engagement with beings as such. It is within this originary vision that beings are forgathered and retained.
Fragment 41 states that this originary vision steers all things through all things. This vision, which prepares both sight and engagement and is thereby what allows for an encounter in the originary (initiating) sense, ‘steers.’ What does it mean ‘to steer’? To steer means to forgather everything together in advance onto a pathway, and thereby, in forgathering, to point out the way and hold it gathered open in advance. In steering, presence unfolds in advance of all else: namely, that presence within which, on that steered pathway, what is encountered can presence and absence.
This originary vision steers everything in such a way that no particular being bumps up against another, and yet, each may in its own way appear conjoined with all others, and everything appears in joint (ἁρμονία) with everything else. In light of this, we ask: is the originary all-steering vision (i.e., γνώμη) something other than the presence of the originary forgathering that shelters all in its presencing and absencing? Does not the saying regarding the steering vision (i.e., γνώμη)