is so insofar as the encountering-being entails the general possibility of synthesis, a possibility which, with regard to concrete deception, is always oriented objectively, i.e., includes within itself a range of indications. To take the above example, I would not, in fact, think that what was approaching me was the Shah of Iran, even though something like that is intrinsically possible. The Shah is a being that could appear among the trees in a German forest at night, whereas there is not a chance that I would see anything like the cubed root of sixty-nine coming toward me.

These three conditions of the possibility of falsehood are obviously interconnected. The decisive question is: How? If we find the answer, then we have to position our investigation to be able to clarify the origin of falsehood more radically in terms of the unified root of the conditions of the possibility of falsehood. What is required for that? Answer: an understanding of the three conditions as a unity in their common root; a clearer exposition of the connection of the three conditions; and likewise a concept of that which makes the connection fundamentally possible.

Regarding the connection itself, it is clear that the second condition is founded on the third. Envisioning a “that as which” is possible only when there is a possible “other.” But the second condition is founded equally on the first. The envisioning of a “that as which” is performed within and for a prior act of already having something, something that should be able to stand in the “as.” Therefore, the third condition will also be connected with the first.

To be sure, this is only a formalistic argument; empty deductions like this, made with an acumen that is finally blind, [189] only give the illusion that they mean something when in fact they get us basically nowhere. It may be indisputable that the second condition is founded on the third and on the first, and therefore that the first is connected with the third. But is the founding of the second condition on the third the same as the founding of the second on the first? Is the connectedness of the first and the third the same as a founding? Or does “founding” mean something else—and if so, what? We want an understanding that comes from seeing for ourselves, not formal deductions from empty propositions! We are asking phenomenologically, and not syllogistically, whether (a) the second condition is connected with the first and (b) the third is connected with the first, and what that means.

(a) The connection between the second and first conditions:

The envisioning of an other is carried out within the tendency to intend and uncover something that is supposed to be determined via the envisioning of an other—this other that appears to me: a deer. The revelatory tendency of an act of showing already has in view, from the