which stands in itself over and against what falls and collapses. Being—the Greeks experienced it as the constant, in the sense of the persistent, over and against the changing of what merely arises and then again disappears. The beingness of beings—that means constancy in the double sense of persistence and duration. Beings, as the constant, understood in this way in opposition to change and decay, are therefore entirely what is present, opposed to everything absent and all mere dissolution. Constancy and especially presence {Anwesenheit} posit back on itself whatever comes into existence as constant and present, but they do not posit it away; they install it in itself as the uprightness of the form versus the deformity of all confusion. The constant, what is present out of itself and formed in itself, unfolds out of itself and for itself its contour and its limit, versus everything merely floating away and limitless. Constancy, presence {Anwesenheit}, form, and limit—all these, especially in the simplicity of their reciprocal relations, belong to and determine what resounds in the Greek word φύσις as the designation of beings in their beingness.
Nevertheless, we have not yet mentioned the most essential determination of beings, most essential because it permeates all the other determinations. The constant, as what stands in itself and, in enduring, does not yield, stands out against decay and change and is elevated over them. What is present, as repudiating all disappearance, is what is self-representing. The form, that which holds in check all confusion, is the overwhelming and the imposing. The limit, as the defense against the limitless, suspends mere progress and rises above it. Hence, according to the determinations we mentioned, and in their mutual belonging together, a being is in the first place and entirely something that stands out against and is elevated over, something that represents itself from itself, the imposing and what has risen above—in brief: the emerging, and thus the unconcealed, over and against the concealed and the withdrawing. All determinations of the beingness of beings—the two senses of constancy, as well as presence {Anwesenheit}, form, and limit—are pervaded and dominated by the one named last, the determination that genuinely should be named first: unconcealedness, ἀλήθεια.
What is the result of all this? Ἀλήθεια is for the Greeks a—indeed, the—basic determination of beings themselves. That