§22 [146-147]

For example, in order to please another with a gift, the object in question must be available.

3.) the objects in question must be used in a determinate way (πώς); they must in general stand within a determinate possibility of use, such that I can freely dispose of them in my orientation toward what I intend in my action.

4.) every action is carried out at a determinate time (ὅτε), and finally

5.) insofar as Dasein is determined as being with others, every action is carried out vis-a-vis one or another definite person.

In this way, Dasein, as acting in each case now, is determined by its situation in the largest sense. This situation is in every case different. The circumstances, the givens, the times, and the people vary. The meaning of the action itself, i.e., precisely what I want to do, varies as well.

This entire context of acting Dasein, in its full situation, is to be disclosed by φρόνησις. It is precisely the achievement of φρόνησις to disclose the respective Dasein as acting now in the full situation within which it acts and in which it is in each case different. Φρόνησις, however, is not at all like spectating the situation and the action; it is not an inventorization in the sense of a disinterested constatation, it is not a study of the situation in which I find myself. Even the moment of interest does not capture the sense of φρόνησις. But discussion does itself belong to the action in the full sense. From the ἀρχή on, from what I want to do, from my decision to act, all the way up to the completed action itself, φρόνησις belongs intrinsically to the acting. In every step of the action, φρόνησις is co-constitutive. That means therefore that φρόνησις must make the action transparent from its ἀρχή up to its τέλος. For the action is a being that can in each case be otherwise; correspondingly, φρόνησις is co-present, such that it co-constitutes the πρᾶξις itself.

The ἀρχή of the action is the οὗ ἕνεκα, the "for the sake of which" ; this οὗ ἕνεκα is at the beginning of the action the προαιρετόν, that which I anticipate in my choice. I am now supposed to make such and such happen for this or that person in such and such a way. In this προαίρεσις what is anticipated is nothing else than the action itself. The ἀρχή with which φρόνησις has to do is the action itself. And the τέλος which is taken into consideration in φρόνησις is the action itself, namely the action carried out. We have here in φρόνησις a comportment analogous to that of τέχνη, insofar as the τεχνίτης in a certain manner anticipates the εἶδος of the house. But in the case of τέχνη the τέλος is not the architect himself; the τέλος is for the architect himself and as such παρά. As architect, he precisely does not have the τέλος at his disposal. The τέλος as ἔργον falls outside of τέχνη. On the other hand, in φρόνησις the action itself is anticipated; and the τέλος of the action is nothing else than the action itself, to which φρόνησις belongs