that in one of the fragments of Heraclitus35—the oldest fragments of philosophical doctrine which explicitly treat the λόγος—the phenomenon of truth in the sense of discoveredness (unconcealment), as we have set it forth, shows through? Those who do not understand are contrasted with the λόγος and with one who speaks the λόγος and understands it. The λόγος is φράζων ὅκως ἔχει, it tells how beings comport themselves. In contrast to those who do not understand, what they do remains in concealment, λανθάνει; they forget (ἐπιλανθάνονται), that is, for them it sinks back into concealment. Thus unconcealment, ἀ-λήθεια, belongs to the λόγος. To translate this word as "truth," and especially to define this expression conceptually in theoretical ways, is to cover over the meaning of what the Greeks posited at the basis—as "self-evident" and as pre-philosophical—of the terminological use of ἀλήθεια.
In citing such evidence we must guard against uninhibited word-mysticism. [220] Nevertheless, in the end, it is the business of philosophy to preserve the power of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself and to protect them from being flattened by the common understanding to the point of unintelligibility, which in its turn functions as a source of illusory problems.
What we stated earlier,36 in a more or less dogmatic interpretation, about λόγος and ἀλήθεια has now received its phenomenal demonstration. The "definition" of truth that we have proposed does not shake off the tradition, but is rather its primordial appropriation. This will be even more the case if we succeed in demonstrating whether and how theory had to arrive at the idea of agreement on the basis of the primordial phenomenon of truth.
Nor is the "definition" of truth as disclosedness and disclosing a mere explanation of words; rather, it grows out of the analysis of the relations of Dasein which we are initially accustomed to call "true."
Being-true as discovering is a manner of being of Dasein. What makes this discovering itself possible must necessarily be called "true" in a still more primordial sense. The existential and ontological foundations of discovering itself first show the most primordial phenomenon of truth.
Discovering is a way of being of being-in-the-world. Taking care, whether in circumspection or in looking in a leisurely way, discovers innerworldly beings. The latter become what is discovered. They are "true" in a secondary sense. Primarily "true," that is, discovering, is Dasein. Truth in the secondary sense does not mean to be discovering [Entdeckend-sein] (discovery), but to be discovered [Endeckt-sein] (discoveredness).
35. Cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Heraclitus, fragment 1.
36. Cf. pp. H 32ff.