It is important to see the tragic interpretation of life by the Greeks.

Krell translates: Apollo says ‘”Why should I do battle for the sake of mere mortals!’ exclaims the sun god, ‘mortals, who are as wretched as the leaves on the trees, flourishing at first, enjoying the fruits of the earth, but then, deprived of heart (akerioi), vanishing (1, 21, 464-66) … Vanishing how? Akerioi, as … those who are deprived of [heart] (Krell, Presocratics After Heidegger, Kalypso, 105).” Their hearts are no longer in life with the listlessness and tedium of old age.

Hence, in this characterization of Greek life, Holderlin says the following in Hyperion’s Song of Fate:

Radiant the gods’ mild breezes/Gently play on you/As the girl artist’s fingers/On holy strings. – Fateless the Heavenly breathe/Like an unweaned infant asleep;/Chastely preserved/In modest bud/For even their minds/Are in flower/And their blissful eyes/Eternally tranquil gaze Eternally clear. – But we are fated/to find no foothold, no rest/ And suffering mortals/ Dwindle and fall/ Headlong from one/ Hour to the next/ Hurled like water/From ledge to ledge/Downward for years to the vague abyss. (Heraclitus Seminar, 101)

Heidegger and Fink, commenting on the meaning of the passage, say the following, “the gods wander without destiny, their spirit eternally in bloom, while humans lead a restless life and fall into the cataract of time and disappear.” (HS, 101)

The key to understanding the Greek focus on the contemplative life is it served the purpose of addressing what they experienced as the restless, disorderly, erratic soul because it was tarrying alongside the simple and eternal.  We do not merely encounter justice but ever more fully uncover what justice is and always was in a hidden way.  The idea of Justice did not come to be nor will it pass away but simply “is” (eternal).

Phronesis as Circumspection (insight) ultimately deals with the goal not of logos, but of nous – where the discourse ultimately ends. With the Doctor, for instance, he deliberates with the goal of making the patient healthy. At some point, the doctor will come to an insight, an aisthesis, a straightforward perception that shows him what he must do in order to cure the patient, at which point there can be action. The outermost limit of the deliberation is the eschaton, at which point the insight arrives, a straightforward perception, the point at which we “see states of affairs as a whole (Heidegger, Plato’s Sophist, 110).” This is the same as in geometry where a polygon is resolved into a triangle, and the triangle is seen as a simple whole.

The notion of the insight follows, among other things, the Greek mathematicians. Heidegger comments that “The Greek mathematicians did not understand axioms as fundamental principles. What they had in mind can be seen in their paraphrase of the word: axiomata are koinai ennoiai. Plato used the word often; it means ‘insight,’ ‘to have an insight’ and indeed with the mind’s eye (Heidegger, The Principle of Reason, 15).

In this regard, the nous of phronesis/circumspection (insight) is different from that of wisdom in that circumspection (insight) only deals with things in the here and now and hence with things that could be otherwise. The deliberation that results in the insight about how to treat the patient in front of us is entirely case dependent, and occurs “in the blink of an eye,” a momentary look at what is momentarily concrete, which as such can always be otherwise.

On the other hand, the noein in wisdom is a looking upon that which is aei, that which is always present in sameness. Time (the momentary and eternal) here functions to discriminate between the noein in circumspection (insight) and the one in Sophia … [S]ophia is Dasein’s positionality toward the beings of the world in the full sense. Phronesis is Dasein’s positionality toward the beings which are themselves Dasein (PS, 113).”

Heidegger indicates that wisdom happens through theorein, which means that there is no production involved in wisdom, but rather an idleness, a “not accomplishing anything … but a mere onlooking, a lingering with the object. (PS, 47),” that most properly uncovers beings. The object of wisdom are those things which always are, aei [the world, PS, 48], and hence cannot be otherwise. The objects of wisdom are obtained through seeing, because seeing is the sense that allows for the greatest determinations of things – specifically seeing with the mind’s eye.

Seeing is thus preeminent among the senses in that ‘it lets many differences be seen; seeing provides the greatest possibility for differentiating the things in their manifoldness and orienting oneself within them.

The privileged position of horan (to see) is all the more remarkable in view of Aristotle’s emphasis (b23) that akouein (hearing) is the highest aisthesis. But that is not a contradiction. Hearing is basic to the constitution of man, the one who speaks. Hearing, along with speaking pertains to man’s very possibility. Because man can hear, he can learn.  Hearing is a hearing of what speaks to you or calls to your mind’s ear.

Heidegger is thinking of the letting come to presence of that which presences. In either case, we have pure theoria, the highest form of energeia as a putting oneself to work without regard to machinations which brings a fullness and completeness to one’s life and one’s lifetime.

When Diotima describes what the lover suddenly sees at Symposium 211a–b, she uses almost the exact adjectives Parmenides used for Being in Fragment 8: Beauty itself “always is and neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes,” and is “itself by itself with itself, always one in form.”

The contemplative life (Theoria) was basically Ritalin for the disorderly hyperactive mind in the ancient world.  It helps improve concentration, focus, and listening skills while reducing impulsivity, restlessness, and hyperactive behavior.  Nietzsche diagnosed the ancient philosopher like Plato as a sickly individual.  A particularly instructive example of the ancient experience of this horror loci (revulsion at where one is) is Horace:  Horace’s boredom has him restlessly switch between town and country, turn against friends, and switch between philosophical standpoints from Cyrenaic hedonist, to indifferent stoic sage, to apathetic Epicurean, to unbending cynic, to accommodating Peripatetic. His positions are opportunistic and fickle, unable to remain with one set of beliefs.  Horace calls this a kind of boredom and restless desire for change insanity (insanire).  Horace has intellectual horror loci, just as he does in his regular life. 

This relates to Ecclesiastes’ “nothing new under the sun,” and Nietzsche’s eternal return, and the Greco-Roman tradition whereby, for example, Toohey notes Horace’s description of Bullatius’s boredom and restlessness as deinon/horror loci woes in Epistles I. II were countered by philosophy (verses  25-30), with the exercise of logic (ratio) and prudence (prudential) that brought about a calm mind (aequus animus).  Restlessness being brought to repose with a calm mind seems to be what Heidegger and Holderlin see as the purpose the Greeks had for philosophy. Plato noted the restless soul should strive to achieve the constancy of the stars, a condition Aristotle called athanatizein/godliness/deathlessness, noting only beasts or gods were at home in solitude.  Consider our hidden “being out of joint” which becomes conspicuous in a rainy cottage with nothing to do in shack wacky cabin fever.

The contemplative life also aims at seeing “beings as a whole,” in specific distinction to everyday thinking that can’t see the forest for the trees.  For instance, we might be going along according to the traditional definitions of marriage and eating habits when we suddenly are interrupted by the insight that our approach to life causes real and figurative unintended  violence to LGBTQ+ rights and animal rights, and so in the spirit of justice we are called to deconstruct our approach to life and reconstruct it in a more inclusive, less violent way.  Justice is not a definition to learn but a guiding spirit (in the secular sense).  Philosophy is a way of life, not a collection of dogmas.