true insofar as it conforms to [sich richten nach] its object. Truth is correctness [Richtigkeit]. In the early modern age, though above all in medieval times, this rectitudo was also called adaequatio (adequation), assimilatio (assimilation), or convenientia (correspondence). These determinations revert back to Aristotle, with whom the great Greek philosophy comes to its end. Aristotle conceives of truth, which has its home in λόγος (assertion), as ὁμοίωσις (assimilation). The representation (νόημα) is assimilated to what is to be grasped. The representational assertion about the hard stone, or representation in general, is of course something pertaining to the “soul” (ψυχή), something “spiritual.” At any event, it is not of the type of the stone. Then how is the representation supposed to assimilate itself to the stone? The representation is not supposed to, and cannot, become stonelike, nor should it, in the corresponding case of an assertion about the table, become woody, or in representing a stream become liquid. Nevertheless, the representation must make itself similar to the being at hand: i.e., as representing [Vor-stellen], it must posit the encountered before us [vor uns hin-stellen] and maintain it as so posited. The re-presenting, the positing-before (i.e., the thinking), conforms to the being so as to let it appear in the assertion as it is.
The relation of a representation to an object (ἀπτικείμενον) is the most “natural” thing in the world, so much so that we are almost ashamed to still speak explicitly of it. Therefore, the naive view, not yet tainted by “epistemology,” will not be able to see what is supposed to be incorrect or even merely questionable in the determination of truth as correctness. Admittedly, throughout the many endeavors of man to attain a knowledge of beings, it often happens unfortunately that we do not grasp beings as they are and are deluded about them. But even delusion occurs only where the intention prevails of conforming to beings. We can delude others and take them in only if the others, just as we ourselves, are in advance in an attitude of conforming to beings and aiming at correctness. Correctness is the standard and the measure even for incorrectness. Thus the determination of truth as correctness, together with its counterpart, namely incorrectness (falsity), is in fact clear as day. Because this conception of truth emerges, as is obvious, entirely from the “natural” way of