Before all else, it is necessary to think-aft er whether or not there exists a more originary connection between ἀληθέα and λέγειν than the one just cited. Based upon the Homeric and Heraclitean uses of language, taken in terms of how they are conventionally understood, one could claim that, in a very general way for the Greeks, ἀληθέα—which we name the “true”—belongs in the realm of λέγειν, the realm of so-called “saying,” and that it is precisely through this connection of ἀληθέα and λέγειν that the originary belonging-together of both becomes elucidated.

However, what does it mean to say that authentic knowing consists of saying the true? For ‘the true’ can surely only be said when it is known and when it stands within knowledge. Thus, knowing must exist first. And knowing is only insofar as it [364] has the true in its possession. Only then, when knowing is the having of the true, can it follow that a saying and a doing in word and deed—namely, as a realization of the true—is possible.

The saying of Heraclitus’s, however, sets out to say in its second sentence what knowledge itself is. It says that knowledge itself is ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν. Even someone with only scant knowledge of the language of Heraclitus and the early thinkers sees immediately the way in which the saying is structured: ἀληθέα is related to λέγειν, and ποιεῖν is related to κατὰ φύσιν. Knowledge consists of λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν, of gathering and bringing-forth. But, what is being gathered in that gathering that amounts to knowledge? ἀληθέα—the unconcealed: it is taken from out of concealment, it is unconcealed, and in such a way that it is preserved and kept safe as what has been taken out from concealment. Knowing is the revealing bringing-in and preserving of what has been taken up and out of concealment. What is unconcealed in such a way is what shows itself from out of itself, appears and, in appearing, presences. What presences in this way are beings. To know is to gather, a gathering that for-gathers what presences from out of itself into unconcealment. To this extent, unconcealment itself is what allows what presences to presence as such, preserving and forgathering what presences in its presencing. Knowing is the gathering toward unconcealment. This gathering and preserving takes in what shows itself, thereby protecting it from being withdrawn, covered over, and obscured. ἀληθέα, taken as “the true,” is not grounded in λέγειν, taken as assertion: rather, λέγειν, understood as gathering, gets its essence from out of ἀληθέα, which is itself understood as what has been gathered from out of concealment and forgathered into unconcealment. What Heraclitus names as the essence of knowledge in the beginning of Occidental thinking is an essence that continues to prevail later in all Greek thought, despite all permutations. Even the beginning of metaphysics in the thought of Plato and Aristotle still thinks knowledge [365] from out of this understanding of essence: Aristotle speaks of σώζειν τὰ φαινόμενα—to save what appears, i.e., to take up and preserve the self-showing in its disclosedness. Additionally, Aristotle’s metaphysics designates τὰ φαινόμενα—the self-showing, i.e., what is present in appearance—to be τὰ

272    Logic: Heraclitus’s Doctrine of the Logos