fragments and verses, we must attempt to illuminate the essence of "truth." With this purpose we ask: What does the name of the goddess mean? That is, what is the meaning of the Greek word ἀλήθεια, which we translate as "truth"? Here we are "dealing," apparently, with a word. Because word and language have become for us a conveyance and a tool for communication, one among others, to speak of "dealing with words" produces at once a fatal impression. It is as if, instead of mounting a motorcycle, we would remain standing before it and make a speech about it with the intention of learning in this way how to ride it. But a word is not a tool, even to one who maintains language is only a conveyance or a means of communication, such that it would be a matter of indifference whether we say "University" ["Universität"] and thereby still think of something or whether we ramble on about the "U" ["Uni"]. Perhaps one studies today only at a "U."
To be sure, neither are we "dealing" here with mere "word-forms" ["Wörter"]. In science, of course, one can deal with word-forms as one would treat the history of the evolution of earthworms. Ἀ-λήθεια means, "literally" ["wörtlich"] translated, "un-concealedness." By attending to the "literal," we seem to take the word seriously. Nevertheless we are disrespecting words [Worte] so long as we only take an interest in the form of the words. The "literal" translation must not simply copy the form and thereby "enrich" the translating language with "new," unusual, and often unwieldy locutions, but it must go beyond the form and reach the words themselves. Erudition about the form does not guarantee a knowledge of the words. These latter say what is properly to be said: the dictum. Of course, if we listen to the literal in such a way that before all else, and therefore constantly, we heed the word and think out of the word, then the high repute of the "literal" is justified—but only then.
We must hear the literally taken word in such a way that we heed its directives in their pointing to the dictum. In such heeding we then hearken to what the word is trying to say. We exercise attentiveness. We begin to think.
Let us now attempt to pursue the directives provided by the literal translating word "unconcealedness" so that we might thereby hear the Greek word ἀλήθεια more clearly and thus surmise something of the essence of "truth" as experienced by the Greeks. The word "unconcealedness" provides a fourfold directive.
The first two directives can be indicated and fixed by changing the emphasis in the word "unconcealedness", un-concealedness and un-concealedness. Un-concealedness points immediately to "concealedness." Where there is concealedness, a concealing must occur or must have occurred. Concealing can exist in many modes: as covering and masking, as conserving and putting aside, as closing off and original preserving