way? If we think from these perspectives, harvesting and gathering lose their superficial and distorted character.
The Greek thinkers speak of their thinking as being a σώζειν τὰ φαινόμενα, a saving of what shows itself. ‘What shows itself’ here means: that which presences from out of itself and which, as that which presences, emerges and has emerged into the unconcealed. This manner of ‘saving’—namely, that which is accomplished in and through thinking—means: to bring-in the self-showing, to gather it into the unconcealed so that it may lay as a provision within the unconcealed. This saving is a gathering, a harvesting, λέγειν—namely, λέγειν τὰ ἀληθέα, to bring the unconcealed into unconcealment. To harvest means: the saving bringing-in of the self-showing (i.e., of signs) into the single unconcealment. Let us, for a moment, draw our attention to that saying of Heraclitus's in which he tells us of what the σοφίη of authentic knowledge consists:
καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαΐοντας.1
[399] And therefore authentic knowledge consists in saying and doing the unconcealed from out of, and along with, a hearkening listening that accords with what shows itself by emerging from out of itself.
ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν is thereby grasped as saying and doing (i.e., word and deed). Previously, we left it expressly undecided whether the translation of λέγειν as “to say” hits upon what is most essential. Now we clearly recognize that it does not. ἀληθέα λέγειν means to say and pronounce something more originary than merely the true, for it means to gather the unconcealed as such in a way that also brings it in, and thereby to gather oneself toward it. In short, it means ‘to harvest’ in the sense that is now to be thought. It is only when the saying is thought in this way that it becomes a saying capable of telling what authentic knowledge and being-knowledgeable consist in. To speak the true, as essential as that may seem, is always already something subsequent and additional, and is only possible because the true is already within knowledge. However, the true is only within knowledge when, and only when, what shows itself is saved in its unconcealedness, i.e., when it has become harvested and has thereby become the provision for all enunciating and accomplishing. Authentic knowledge, however, only comes about and exists in thinking. It is only now that we can think-after the entirety of Heraclitus's saying and can be attentive to the words that precede what has been elucidated thus far. They read as follows: τὸ φρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη—thinking is the highest ability. Thinking as such is meant here, and not in the sense of a ‘logic’ that later develops itself, but understood as a pondering and a mindful consideration, i.e., as the self-gathering into the gathering (i.e., λέγειν ).
1 See above, German page 359.