Why did the Greeks not make ἀλήθεια as such a question, rather than–if we may say so–experience it as something “obvious”? Was this lack of inquiry a neglect? Did it stem from impotence with regard to original questioning?
RECAPITULATION
Even without special reflection, the question of truth seems important enough. But although we might take an emphatic interest in “truth,” i.e., in what is true and in the possession of what is true, that still does not qualify as a sufficient ground for the necessity of the question of the essence of truth. For the history of the essence of truth and the still unbroken obviousness of the traditional conception of truth testify quite clearly that the necessity of this question about the essence has by no means been experienced and seen with insight. Now the necessity of a philosophical question is as essential as the question itself is. For a philosophical question must, following the sovereign character of philosophy, bear in itself its necessity, i.e., it must point back to this necessity. Therefore we could not have begun with a reflection on the necessity of the question of truth, but instead the first task had to be to develop this question according to its initially graspable basic features, in order for this development itself to lead us to the necessity of the question.
Hereby a view is opened up on the essence of philosophy which we cannot further investigate now, but which must be briefly noted, since it clarifies the ground of the appurtenance of historical reflection to meditative questioning. The domain of philosophy as the question of beings as such and as a whole, and consequently philosophy itself, cannot be manufactured and determined by human products and institutions and claims. The human output and “work” to be found under the name “philosophy,” in any of its forms, will never make visible what philosophy is. For philosophy belongs to the truth of Being {Seyns}. Philosophy is and must be whenever and however Being {Seyn} itself presses toward