263 I. 6
Being and Time

Moreover, the 'definition' of "truth" as "uncoveredness" and as "Being-uncovering", it not a mere explanation of a word. Among those ways in which Dasein comports itself there are some which we are accustomed in the first instance to call 'true'; from the analysis of these our definition emerges.

Being-true as Being-uncovering*, is a way of Being for Dasein. What makes this very uncovering possible must necessarily be called 'true' in a still more primordial sense. The most primordial phenomenon of truth is first shown by the existential-ontological foundations of uncovering.

Uncovering is a way of Being for Being-in-the-world. Circumspective concern, or even that concern in which we tarry and look at something, uncovers entities within-the-world. These entities become that which has been uncovered. They are 'true' in a second sense. What is primarily 'true'—that is, uncovering—is Dasein. "Truth" in the second sense does not mean Being-uncovering* (uncovering), but Being-uncovered (uncoveredness).

Our earlier analysis of the worldhood of the world and of entities within-the- world has shown, however, that the uncoveredness of entities within-the- world is grounded in the world's disclosedness. But disclosedness is that basic character of Dasein according to which it is its "there". Disclosedness is constituted by state-of-mind, understanding, and discourse, and pertains equiprimordially to the world, to Being-in, and to the Self. In its very structure, care is ahead of itself—Being already in a world—as Being alongside entities within-the-world; and in this structure the disclosedness of Dasein lies hidden. With and through it is uncoveredness;1 hence only with Dasein's disclosedness is the most primordial phenomenon of truth [221] attained. What we have pointed out earlier with regard to the existential Constitution of the "there"xxxvii and in relation to the everyday Being of the "there",xxxviii pertains to the most primordial phenomenon of truth, nothing less. In so far as Dasein is its disclosedness essentially, and discloses and uncovers as something disclosed to this extent it is essentially 'true'. Dasein is 'in the truth'. This assertion has meaning ontologically. It does not purport to say that ontically Dasein is introduced 'to all the truth' either always or just in every case, but rather that the disclosedness of its ownmost Being belongs to its existential constitution.

If we accept the results we have obtained earlier, the full existential meaning of the principle that 'Dasein is in the truth' can be restored by the following considerations:


1 'Mit und durch sie ist Entdecktheit . . .' Our version reflects the ambiguity of the German, which leaves the grammatical function of the pronoun 'sie' obscure and permits it to refer either to 'the disclosedness of Dasein', to 'care', or—perhaps most likely—to 'the structure of care'.


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger