THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE POSSIBILITY OF THE ΨΕΥΔΗΣ ΔΟΞΑ
clarification of the essence of δόξα - but simultaneously for the question concerning the essence of ψεῦδος. For this latter question moves in the framework of the problem of δόξα. But if, as has just been shown, the phenomenon of making-present is decisive for the clarification of the essence of δόξα (proceeding from the true δόξα), the former must also be important for the inner possibility of ψεῦδος and thus for untruth. Nothing in a Platonic dialogue, however laughable and nonsensical it may appear, is without significance.
The fork is the condition of the possibility of untruth, but at the same time the condition of the possibility of truth; both are subject to the same conditions. What does the fork mean? It is the image of the fundamental constitution of human Dasein, of its essential construction.
We thus come to the fourth and final point.
At the conclusion of the preliminary investigation the question concerning the essence of ψεῦδος remained unanswered. The third attempt wanted to conceive the ψεῦδος as substitution of one for the other. When I erroneously take Theaetetus for Socrates, then, according to this interpretation, I take Socrates instead of Theaetetus. Accepting this interpretation led to impossible consequences, to the total denial of the phenomenon.
At most, however, the impossibility of the consequences was able to force the admission of the impossibility of the assumption. Thus no insight was obtained into how far this explanation necessarily remains inadequate to the phenomenon. This insight was lacking, because the phenomenon itself was still inadequately, or not at all, in view. Only the main investigation provided help here.
We now ask: can the inner possibility of the ψεῦδος be read off from the indicated essential structure of the δόξα? More precisely put: how does Plato now conceive the essence of ψεῦδος? I shall give its essential constitution only in its fundamental features and with respect to just one of the essential possibilities of distorted view.
Let us keep in mind the result of the main investigation: in the δόξα we view objects in a twofold way, in and through the forking. On the one hand we have the object as sighted in immediate bodily presence (αἴσθησις), on the other hand we have this same object seen as something,