But, says Aristotle, the possibility persists that a λόγος or statement will be disclosive or ἀποφαντικός in a broad sense. Considered broadly, then, ἀποφαίνεσθαι means taking things out of their hiddenness—the τέλος of such a λόγος consists in letting something be seen-as this or that. ᾽Αλέθεια as λόγος is the basic mode of comportment of Dasein as disclosive. What is essential about such a disclosive possibility of λόγος is not that it “gets it right” regarding the entity it takes out of hiddenness, but rather that it shows the entity at all.
After analyzing Aristotle’s rhetoric as the “logic” of everyday discourse, Heidegger turns to Nicomachean Ethics VI and asks about the kind of unconcealing that is enacted in the so-called “intellectual virtues” (perhaps rendered more accurately from the perspective of ἀληθεύειν as “the most unconcealing λόγος- modes”). Heidegger follows Aristotle in distinguishing these ἀρεταί—“virtues” qua modes of authentically disclosing—according to two viewpoints: 1) according to the kind of beings they uncover, namely, whether they are beings that always are the way they are, or whether they can be otherwise than they now are; and 2) according to how these “virtues” uncover the entities, that is, whether or not they fully uncover the entities in their being—or, in other words, in terms of their ἀρχή and τέλος.
For those entities that most fully are—those that are unchanging in their mode of being—the ἀρχή and τέλος are given at the same time. The ἀρχή is that which always already is present or available, i.e., unhidden. It is the underlying, the ὑποκείμενον. In terms of production, it is what precedes the product as already on hand and thus not needing to be produced. In terms of understanding, it is what allows the entity to be understood as it most properly is. The most fundamental and highest form of uncovering is the ἀληθεύειν that reveals and maintains an entity in its ἀρχή and τέλος. Thus, in the most proper sense uncovering an entity in its being means revealing it and understanding it as it always already is. And what is in the fullest sense is also what can be uncovered in the most proper sense.
From this it becomes apparent in the address that the Greeks understood “to be” as meaning “to be available,” “to be present to a possible understanding” (Anwesenheit). Accordingly, what is in the fullest and most proper sense is that which is most available to possible understanding. Aristotle chooses the word οὐσία— which also means “what is present” or “what is immediately available”—to name this most proper mode of being as being present or available for understanding. Through this turn to Aristotle, Heidegger’s analysis results in articulating the connection between truth and being by showing the relation of truth as unconcealedness to being as presence.
The address ends with a programmatic sketch of the task of contemporary philosophy and is followed by a discussion between Heidegger and Scheler. For a much fuller account of the conception of truth mined by Heidegger from Aristotle, see the two courses that coincide with the composition and delivery of the