Being. That which is, is that which arises and opens itself, which, as what presences, comes upon man as the one who presences, i.e., comes upon the one who himself opens himself to what presences in that he apprehends it. That which is does not come into being at all through the fact that man first looks upon it, in the sense of a representing that has the character of subjective perception. Rather, man is the One who is looked upon by that which is; he is the one who is—in company with itself—gathered toward presencing, by that which opens itself. To be beheld by what is, to be included and maintained Within its openness and in that way to be borne along by it, to be driven about by its oppositions and marked by its discord—that is the essence of mall in the great age of the Greeks, Therefore, in order to fulfill his essence, Greek man must gather (legein) and save (sozein), catch up and preserve,16 what opens itself in its openness, and he must remain exposed (aletheuein) to all its sundering confusions. Greek man is as the one who apprehends [der Vernehmer] that which is,17 and this is why in the age of the Greeks the world cannot become picture. Yet, on the other hand, that the beingness of whatever is, is defined for Plato as eidos [aspect, view] is the presupposition, destined far in advance and long ruling indirectly in concealment, for the world's having to become picture (Appendix 8).
In distinction from Greek apprehending, modern representing, whose meaning the word repraesentatio first brings to its earliest expression, intends something quite different. Here to represent [vor-stellen] means to bring what is present at hand [das Vorhandene] before oneself as something standing over against, to relate it to oneself, to the one representing it, and to force it back into this relationship to oneself as the normative realm. Wherever this happens, man "gets into the picture" in precedence over whatever is. But in that man puts himself into the picture in this way, he puts himself into the scene, i.e., into the open
16. "Preserve" translates bewahren. The verb speaks of a preserving that as such frees and allows to be manifest. On the connotations resident in wahren and related words formed from wahr, see T 42 n. 9.
17. The noun Vernehmer is related to the verb vernehmen (to hear, to perceive, to understand), Vernehmen speaks of an immediate receiving. in contrast to the setting-before (vor-stellen) that arrests and objectifies.