forth as such, therefore, that constitutes the manner of knowing obtaining to ποίησις: rather, it is bringing-forth (i.e., revealing) ‘in accordance’ with what emerges-from-out-of-itself.
However, thinking in such a way would mean that we would still, and in an unfortunate way, misunderstand the Greek essence of ποίησις and the Greek essence of knowing. For, understood in this way, the same thing would be said twice in the saying of Heraclitus’s. In a way, this is true; in another way, it is not. It would say the same insofar as λέγειν, as the gathering preserving of the unconcealed, and ποιεῖν, as the bringing-forth from out of emerging, both show the fundamental feature of the human comportment through and in which the human allows what emerges into unconcealment to come to presence. However, it would not say the same insofar as λέγειν only preserves the unconcealed in a manner that gathers, be it that which emerges from out of itself or be it something that has been brought-forth and placed-forth, and which is thereby present. For, in that case, ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν, which is named as secondary, would more forcefully and authentically emphasize the moment of πρᾶξις in distinction to λέγειν, the latter of which corresponds to θεωρεῖν, i.e., pure looking at and considering.
Even though this distinction between theoretical and practical comportment originates in the metaphysics founded by the ancient Greeks, we should not superimpose it back onto Greek thinking, and certainly not in its post-Greek and contemporary iterations. Above all, even if this differentiation seems patently obvious, we should not superimpose it back onto inceptual thinking, a state of affairs that appears to be the case following the conventional translation of saying 112. For, it is the case that for Greek thought, ποιεῖν itself as ποιεῖν is primarily a knowing, [369] and not only because a certain knowledge and expertise belong to any bringing-forth and placing-forth. Rather, it is precisely because this knowledge, when experienced in a Greek way, constitutes the essential and authentic relation of ποίησις to being (i.e., to φύσις). Furthermore, it is precisely because ποιεῖν is most definitely not an effectuating making, but is, understood literally, a bringing-forth, a placing-forth and placing-there—that is, a gathering of the unconcealed as such. The Greek concept and word for what we call ‘art’ (and this means ‘art’ in the highest sense) is τέχνη, and this is a concept of cognition; such cognizing means to grasp according to the essence of knowing as the uncovering of the unconcealed. Art in its highest sense is ποίησις—poesy—and it is a knowing which, as knowing, is the gathering of the unconcealed and self-gathering to it. However, the unconcealed forgathers the corresponding self-gathering toward itself only when the unconcealed, as itself, has emerged from out of itself and stands within unconcealment in its own proper standing. Self-gathering toward originary forgathering does not dissolve within this forgathering. When experienced in a Greek way, the originary relation to beyng is not an indistinct dissolution into the infinite in the sense of the in-determinate. Rather, self-gathering toward being brings the latter into unconcealment, and in such a way that this gathering each