such that the seeing of it is not simply a gaping at something already lying there but a seeing which, in seeing, first brings forth what is to be seen, i.e., a productive seeing. The essence, i.e., the Greek-Platonic ἰδέα, the look of beings in what they are, is grasped in such a productive seeing. The philosopher is a thinker only if he is this kind of seer and not a gaper or a calculator or a mere babbler. Every “foundation” in the sense we discussed comes too late with regard to the positing of the essence, because the productive seeing of the essence is itself a productive seeing of that in which the essence has its ground—a productive seeing of what its ground is. Knowledge of the essence is in itself a ground-laying. It is the positing of what lies under as ground, the positing of the ὑποκείμενον—θέσις—and hence is ὑπόθεσις. It is not the subsequent adding of a ground for something already represented. When a thing is determined as to its essence, then this essence itself is productively seen. The productive seeing of the essence brings something into view for the essence and claims it for the essence, out of which it—the essence—becomes visible for what it is.
§25. The unconcealedness of the whatness of beings as the truth pertaining to the grasping of the essence. The groundedness of the correctness of an assertion in unconcealedness (ἀλήθεια).
We now have to apply what has been said to the question occupying us about the “foundation” of the traditional positing of the essence of truth as the correctness of an assertion.
Knowledge of an essence cannot be founded in the strict sense of foundation (demonstration by appeal to something present at hand). It is not, however, on that account groundless but is itself a ground-laying. Consequently, it is no accident that we do not find in Aristotle a foundation for the positing of the essence of truth as the correctness of an assertion; it is necessarily so, because there is no foundation for the positing of an essence. On the other hand, however, we can now at least surmise that this determination of the essence of truth as the correctness of an assertion is not arbitrary and groundless but is itself a grounding, the laying of a ground and thereby a return to the ground. We