"a kind of disposition of human Dasein in which I dispose over the transparency of myself."22 (GA 19, 52)
Φρόνησις is thus nothing self-evident, but is a task that must be seized in a prohairesis.. Φρόνησις is a hexis of ἀληθεύειν, "a kind of disposition of human Dasein in which I dispose over the transparency of myself."22 (GA 19, 52)
But the fact that φρόνησις remains a task, and not a perfected accomplishment, points to something else that is important, namely, the fact that this kind of knowmg is not an independent hemis or mode of disclosure:
Φρόνησις is thus itself indeed an ἀληθεύειν, but not an independent one, rather it is an ἀληθεύειν in the service of πρᾶξις; it is an aléiheuein that makes an action transparent in itself. Insofar as the transparency of a pratis is constitutive thereof, φρόνησις is co-constitutive of the proper accomplishment of action itself. Φρόνησις is an ἀληθεύειν, but, as noted, not independent; rather it guides an action. (GA 19, 53)
In other words, the disclosure that occurs deliberatively in φρόνησις, by way of λόγος, is itself dependent upon and directed toward, that is, subservient to, a more originary disclosure. Φρόνησις, as we shall see, indeed guides an action, but in its deliberative capacity neither first discloses the practical situation of action, nor indeed does it disclose the primary end toward which an action is directed in advance.
This is merely a preliminary situating of φρόνησις with respect to the other intellectual virtues, and a more careful analysis of πρᾶξις, and in particular of its specific seeing, will be required. Before proceeding to analyse φρόνησις in greater detail, Aristotle briefly considers the two remaining ways in which the soul attains truth by way of the λόγος, namely, σοφία and νοῦς.
Σοφία belongs to the epistemic faculty. In Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle begins his consideration of σοφία by reminding us that its counterpart, ἐπιστήμη, is itself unable to apprehend the first principles from which it demonstrates scientific truths. Nor do τέχνη or φρόνησις enable us to apprehend these ἀρχαί, for they deal with variable objects, whereas the epistemic faculty is concerned with objects that are invariable and exist of necessity. Yet somewhat surprisingly Aristotle then adds: "Nor is σοφία the knowledge of first principles either, for whoever has wisdom has to arrive at some things by demonstration" (NE, 1141a1). Recalling the dispositions whereby we attain truth and are never led into falsehood (τέχνη is now omitted, and this, Heidegger suggests, is because it now appears that τέχνη may indeed lead us into falsehood), Aristotle insists that the first principles or ἀρχαί must be apprehended by νοῦς. The implication is that σοφία
22 The citation is Heidegger's paraphrase of NE, 1140b20f., where Aristotle describes φρόνησις as a ἕξιν μετὰ λόγου ἀληθῆ.