ἀληθῆ, i.e., what is unconcealed, with this meaning the same as τὰ ὄντα, i.e., what is present.

If we understand ἀληθέα λέγειν in the saying of Heraclitus’s to be a revealing gathering of the concealed toward unconcealment, then the originary Greek answer to the question concerning the essence of knowing—which Heraclitus poses without saying it—is not our only reward. For, in the Greek interpretation attempted above, we have also stepped into the realm where Heraclitus’s presentation regarding the second essential element of σοφίη (i.e., ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν) becomes understandable.

Given all that was said in earlier sessions about φύσις with an eye toward the elucidation of ἐπιστήμη φυσική, and given also what was said about this foundational word in connection with the elucidation of ζωή and ψυχή, there ought to be much within our memory to draw upon that can now be reconsidered. φύσις names the emerging that at the same time unfolds as a returning-back-inside-itself. In the originary oneness of both of these moments there unfolds that for which φύσις is the inceptual Greek name: namely, that which we call being. In the essence of emerging there lies a letting-go-forth into the open—i.e., revealing or, said in a Greek way, ἀλήθεια. Furthermore, in the essence of a returning-back-inside-itself there lies a taking and holding back, a covering over which the Greeks, however, did not specifically name.

This not -naming of the covering-over that fundamentally unfolds in all revealing is an omission and failure of enunciation, one in which the innermost secret of the fundamental essence of Greek thinking perhaps lies concealed. That is why it remains obscure to us how the inceptual thinkers of the Greeks [366] thought the essential oneness of ἀλήθεια and φύσις. The remaining fragments of the “Didactic Poems” of Parmenides are the only proof that these words gave a presaging perspective to the thought of these thinkers.

If we attend to the essential belonging-together of ἀλήθεια and φύσις, and if we consider that λέγειν as the gathering preserving is determined from out of ἀληθέα (i.e., the unconcealed and its revealing), then it becomes clear in what way the second essential dimension of knowing—the ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν—amounts to the same. But what does ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν mean in this context? ποιεῖν means “to make,” “to do.” The German words encompass a broad range of meanings, as do the Greek words. Nevertheless, the time has finally come to think the word ποιεῖν in a Greek way, or at least to attempt the exertion of doing so. This recurring demand here to think ‘in a Greek way’ is experienced and executed through the path of a dialogue with inceptual thinking, a path that is meant to lead solely toward the German thinking that has properly been assigned to us. However, what is not intended here is a correction of the historiographical understanding of a bygone Greek world. The fundamental meaning of ποιεῖν is a bringing-forth and placing-forth. It is good, and even expressly necessary, that we now take these German words seriously (i.e., ‘literally’) and at their word. We thereby find ourselves right