Plato's Sophist [144-145]
The appropriate speaking of an ἀρχή cannot be carried out by λόγος, insofar as the latter is a διαίρεσις. An ἀρχή can only be grasped for itself and not as something else. The ἀρχή is an ἀδιαίρετον, something whose Being resists being taken apart. Accordingly, φρόνησις includes the possibility of a sheer grasp of the ἀρχή as such, i.e., a mode of disclosure transcending λόγος. Insofar as φρόνησις is a βελτίστη ἕξις, it must be more than mere λόγος. That corresponds precisely to the position in which we left σοφία. Σοφία is concerned with the ἀρχαί as such; thus there is alive in it something like pure νοεῖν. For an ἀρχή, which is an ἀδιαίρετον, is not disclosed in λέγειν but in νοεῖν.2 The question arises whether, in analogy with the way σοφία is νοῦς καὶ ἐπιστήμη, so also φρόνησις might include the possibility, beyond the λέγειν and λογίζεσθαι and yet in connection with them, of uncovering the ἀρχή as such and holding fast to it, i.e., whether there is in φρόνησις, too, something like a pure νοεῖν, a pure perceiving.
a) The structure of the βουλεύεσθαι.
a) Structural analysis of action. The constitutive moments of
action. Ἀρχή and τέλος of action. Εὐπραξία and εὐβουλία.
Our consideration will begin by presentifying the beings disclosed in φρόνησις. We cannot say: the beings thematic in φρόνησις, as long as to be thematic means to be the object of a theoretical consideration. Φρόνησις has properly no theme, since it does not as such have in view the beings it discloses. The being disclosed by φρόνησις is πρᾶξις. In this resides human Dasein. For human Dasein is determined as πρακτική, or—to make the determination more complete—the ζωὴ of man is determined as ζωὴ πρακτικὴ μετὰ λόγου (cf. Nic. Eth. I, 7, 1098a3f.).
In the case of a definite action, the question immediately arises as to that of which it is the action. Every action is action in relation to a determinate "of which." Since the ζωὴ πρακτική moves in each case within a definite surrounding world, this action is carried out under determined circumstances. These circumstances characterize the situation in which Dasein at any time finds itself. Thus action itself is characterized by various moments:3
1.) that of which it is the action (ὄ),
2.) that which must be taken up as ways and means and must already
2. Cf. Met. IX, 10.
3. Nic. Eth. VI, 10, 1142b23ff.