The Essence of Truth
CONTENTS
xii
Translator's Foreword
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
1
§ 1 The Questionworthiness of Our 'Self-Evident'
Preconceptions Concerning 'Essence' and Truth'
6
§ 2 History of the Concept of Truth: Not Historical
Confirmation of Preconceptions, But Return to
the Originary Greek Experience of ἀλήθεια
(Unhiddenness)
PART ONE
THE CLUE TO THE 'ESSENCE' OF ἈΛΉΘΕΙΑ
Interpretation of the Allegory of the Cave in Plato's
Politeia
CHAPTER 1
17
The Four Stages of the Occurrence of Truth
18
A. The First Stage: the Situation of Man in the
Underground Cave
19
§ 3 The Unhidden in the Cave: the Shadows
23
B. The Second Stage: a 'Liberation' of Man within the
Cave
24
§ 4 New Features of ἀλήθεια Revealed by the
Unsuccessful Attempt at Liberation
29
C. The Third Stage: the Genuine Liberation of Man to
the Primordial Light
31
§ 5 The Ascent of Man from the Cave Towards the
Light of the Sun
31
a) Levels of Unhiddenness outside the Cave
33
b) Four Questions Concerning the Visible
Connections of ἀλήθεια in the Occurrence of
Liberation
35
§ 6 Idea and Light
35
a) Seeing of What-Being
39
b) The Essence of Brightness: Transparency
42
c) The Fundamental Accomplishment of the
Idea: Letting-through the Being of Beings
43
§ 7 Light and Freedom. Freedom as Bond to the
Illuminating
44
§ 8 Freedom and Beings. The Illuminating View as
Projection of Being (Exemplified by Nature,
History, Art and Poetry)
47
§ 9 The Question Concerning the Essence of Truth as
Unhiddenness
48
a) Gradations of Unhiddenness. The Ideas as the
Primordially Unhidden and Most Beingful of
Beings
51
b) The Ideas as What Is Sighted by a
Pre-modelling Perceiving within the
Occurrence of Unhiddenness
53
c) Deconcealment as the Fundamental
Occurrence of the Ex-istence of Man
58
D. The Fourth Stage: the Freed Prisoner's Return to the
Cave
58
§ 10 The φιλόσοφος as Liberator of the Prisoners. His
Act of Violence, His Endangerment and Death
63
§ 11 The Fulfilment of the Fate of Philosophizing as an
Occurrence of ἀλήθεια: Separation and
Togetherness of the Manifest and the Hidden
(Being and Illusion)
CHAPTER 2
69
The Idea of the Good and Unhiddenness
69
§ 12 The Idea of the Good as the Highest Idea:
Empowerment of Being and Unhiddenness
73
§ 13 Seeing as ὁρᾶν and νοεῖν. Seeing and the Seeable
in the Yoke of the Light
77
§ 14 The Good: Empowerment of That upon Which
All Depends
81
§ 15 The Question Concerning the Essence of Truth as
the Question Concerning the History of Man's
Essence and His παιδεία
CHAPTER 3
85
The Question Concerning the Essence of Untruth
85
§ 16 The Waning of the Fundamental Experience
of ἀλήθεια. The Philosophical Obligation to
Re-awaken It: the Abiding Origin of Our
Existence
89
§ 17 The Neglect of the Question Concerning the
Essence of Hiddenness. Transformation of the
Question Concerning the Essence of Truth into
the Question Concerning the Essence of Untruth
95
§ 18 Justification of the 'Detour'. Preliminary
Clarification of Fundamental Concepts: ψεῦδος,
λήθη and ἀ-λήθεια
104
§ 19 Summary: Unhiddenness and Being; the
Question Concerning the Essence of Untruth
PART TWO
AN INTERPRETATION OF PLATO'S THEAETETUS WITH
RESPECT TO THE QUESTION OF THE ESSENCE OF
UNTRUTH
CHAPTER 1
109
Preliminary Considerations
109
§ 20 The Question Concerning the Essence of
ἐπιστήμη: Man's Attack on the Self-evidences of
His Self-understanding
114
§ 21 Fundamental Content of the Greek Concept of
Knowledge: Fusion of Know-how and Seeing
Having-Present of That Which Is Present
CHAPTER 2
118
Beginning of the Discussion of Theaetetus' First
Answer: ἐπιστήμη Is αἴσθησις. Critical
Demarcation of the Essence of Perception
118
§ 22 Αἴσθησις as φαντασία. The Self-showing in Its
Presencing
121
§ 23 The Senses: Only Passage-way, Not Themselves
What Perceives in Human Perception
125
§ 24 The Soul as the Relationship that Unifies the
Perceivable and Holds It Open
130
§ 25 Colour and Sound: Both Perceived at Once in
διανοεῖν
CHAPTER 3
Stepwise Unfolding of Perceiving in All Its
Connections
133
A. Step One: Perceiving of Beings as Such
133
§ 26 A Strange 'Excess' in the Perceived over and
above the Sensory Given: 'Being' and Other
Characters as the Necessary but Unnoticed
Co-perceived
136
B. Step Two: Inquiry into What Perceives the Excess in
the Perceived
136
§ 27 The Sense-Organs: No Passage-way to the
Common in Everything Perceived
140
§ 28 The Soul as What Views the κοινά in διανοεῖν
144
C. Step Three: The Soul's Relation to Being as Striving for Being
145
§ 29 The Priority of Striving for Being in the Soul as
Relationship to the Perceived
147
§ 30 Having and Striving
147
a) Apparent Incompatibility between Striving
and Perception
148
b) Losing Oneself in Immediate Perception
149
c) Non-regarding and Non-conceptual Perceiving
152
d) Free Possession of Truth (Knowledge) Only in
the Relationship of Striving towards What Is
Striven for; Inauthentic and Authentic
Having
154
§ 31 Inauthentic and Authentic Striving. The ἔρως as
Striving for Being
156
§ 32 More Determinate Conception of Striving for
Being
157
a) More Essential Unfolding of the
Determinations of Being in Attunedness
159
b) The Taking-in-View of the Connections of
Being
160
c) Interpretation of Connections of Being in the συλλογισμός
162
d) Initial Clarification of the Connection of
Being to Time
163
§ 33 The 'Excess': Not an Addition to What Is Sensed,
but the Conceptual Highlighting of Distinct
Characters of Being in the Sphere of Striving for
Being
167
D. Step Four: Being-Human as Historical in Staking
and Stance (παιδεία)
167
§ 34 The Rooting of 'Abstract' Characters of Being in
the Unity of Bodily Existence. Their Difference
from 'Self-less' Nature. Being out Beyond Oneself
in Primordial Yearning
171
§ 35 Inadequacy of Theaetetus' First Answer.
Perception Still More Than Perception.
Broadened Experience of αἴσθησις as the
Condition of the Possibility of Unhiddenness
CHAPTER 4
176
Towards a Discussion of Theaetetus' Second Answer:
ἐπιστήμη Is ἀληθὴς δόξα. The Various Meanings of
δόξα
176
§ 36 The Emergence of the Second Answer out of the
Question of Untruth
180
§ 37 Double-Meaning of δόξα (View): Look and
Opinion
184
§ 38 Two More Faces of δόξα The Wavering between
Letting-Appear (εἶδος) and Distorting (ψεῦδος)
CHAPTER 5
187
The Question Concerning the Possibility of the
ψεῦδὴς δόξα
187
A. Preparatory Investigation: Impossibility of the
Phenomenon of the ψεῦδὴς δόξα
187
§ 39 The Horizon of the Preparatory Investigation as
Excluding in Advance the Possibility of a ψεῦδὴς δόξα
189
a) First Perspective: Alternatives of Knowing
and Not-knowing
193
b) Second Perspective: Alternatives of Being
and Non-being
197
c) Third Perspective: The ψεῦδὴς δόξία as
ἀλλοδοξα (Substitution instead of Confusion)
202
§ 40 Result of the Preliminary Investigation:
λόγος-Character of the δόξα; Its Aporia:
Suppression of the Phenomenon through
the Guiding Perspectives
203
B. Main Investigation: Saving the Phenomenon of the
ψεῦδὴς δόξα
203
§ 41 Retracting the Guiding Perspectives of the
Preliminary Investigation in Favour of Previously
Denied Intermediate Phenomena
208
§ 42 New Characteristics of the Soul: Two Similes
209
a) Simile of the Wax; Keeping-in-Mind
210
b) An Example: the Feldberg Tower; Having -
Present and Making-Present
215
c) Simile of the Aviary; Modes of Retaining
218
§ 43 Confirmation of the Connection between
αἴσθησις and διάνοια through Broadening the
Field of the Present
219
§ 44 Clarification of the Double-Meaning of δόξα Its
Forking into Having-Present and Making-Present
223
§ 45 Enabling of Mis-taking through the Forking of
the δόξα
226
§ 46 The Shifting of Ontological Failure into the
Incorrectness of the Proposition. What
Remained Un-happened in the History of the
Concept of Truth
APPENDIX
230
Supplementary Materials from Heidegger's Notes
238
Editor's Afterword
242
English-German Glossary
251
Greek-English Glossary
The Essence of Truth (GA 34) [GA App]
Ereignis