—just as with a source that wells up only as long as it is already preserving But what it is the Greeks experience and think when they allude to a "concealedness" in every "unconcealedness" is not immediately evident. It can be grasped only by a special consideration. And that in turn requires a prior knowledge of the modes of concealing in general. Only thus can "concealedness," as the Greeks thought of it, and its circumscribed essential realm be distinguished adequately. But before we reach that far, the Greek word ἀλήθεια has already obtained a certain proximity by means of its translation as "unconcealedness"; for the experiential domain of "concealing" and "not concealing," "concealed" and "unconcealed," is at once more clear and more familiar than any meaning we would attribute to our ordinary word "truth" by means of an adventitious reflection. The "meaning" and "definition" of "truth" gained in that way would have to be expressly noted by us each time. And we would be at risk of fastening upon only one of the many random definitions possible from various philosophical standpoints. Now concealment, on the contrary, is something we are acquainted with—because the things themselves and their connections hide themselves from us and for us, or because we ourselves bring about concealments, perform and allow them, or because both a concealing of "things" and a concealing of this concealing occur in an interplay through us.
The translating word un-concealedness directs us, secondly, to the striking fact that the Greeks think in the essence of truth something like the taking away, cancellation, or annihilation of concealment. Corresponding to this negation of concealment, truth for the Greeks is, as it were, something "negative." Thereby an odd state of affairs comes to light, to which our ordinary negation-less word "truth" (as well as veritas and verité) bars every way. What the prefixes "ἀ-" and "un-" in the words ἀ-λήθεια and "un-concealedness" properly mean is at first as little decided and founded as is the meaning of the "concealedness" that is removed and "negated." What we can see clearly here is only this: the essence of truth as unconcealedness stands in some sort of opposition to concealment. Indeed it appears unconcealedness is involved with concealedness in a "conflict," the essence of which itself remains in dispute.