We consider at first the name of the goddess Ἀλήθεια, that is, unconcealedness. Of course, the mere fact of learning that "ἀλήθεια" is the way the Greek language expresses "truth" does not tell us anything about the essence of truth, as little as we learn something about horses by knowing the Latin expression "equus." But if we translate ἀλήθεια by "unconcealedness," and thereby transport ourselves into this word's directives, then we are no longer constrained within linguistic significations but stand before an essential nexus that engages our thinking down to its very foundations. We are pursuing the four directives provided by the name Ἀλήθεια as translated "unconcealedness." In this way we hope to experience something of the primordial essence of truth in Greek thought.
First, un-concealedness refers to concealment. Concealment hence permeates the primordial essence of truth.
Secondly, un-concealedness indicates that truth is wrenched from concealment and is in conflict with it. The primordial essence of truth is conflictual. What "conflict" means here remains a question.
Thirdly, un-concealedness, in accordance with the just-mentioned characterizations, refers to a realm of "oppositions" in which "truth" stands. Since it is on the basis of the "oppositional" essence of unconcealedness that its conflictual essence first becomes visible, we have to consider more closely the question of the "opposition" in which truth stands. Western thinking accounts untruth the sole opposite to truth. "Untruth" is identified with "falsity," which, understood as incorrectness, forms the evident and obtrusive counterpart to "correctness." The opposition holding sway at the beginning is known to us under the names ἀλήθεια καὶ ψεῦδος, veritas et falsitas, truth and falsity. We interpret the latter opposition as correctness and incorrectness; but truth as "correctness" is not of the same essence as truth in the sense of "unconcealedness." The opposition of correctness and incorrectness, validity and invalidity, may very well exhaust the oppositional essence of truth for later thinking and above all for modern thinking. But that decides nothing at all concerning the possible oppositions to "unconcealedness" as thought by the Greeks.
We must therefore ask how the primordial thinking of the Greeks sees the opposition to "unconcealedness." Reflecting on this, we encounter the surprising fact that τὸ ψεῦδος immediately presents itself as the opposite of ἀλήθεια and ἀληθές; we translate correctly: "the false." The opposite of unconcealedness is therefore not concealedness but indeed falsity. The word ψεῦδος is of another stem and does not immediately say anything about concealing. Which is odd, especially since we claim and maintain that the primordial essence of truth is "unconcealedness"; for, in that case, the opposition corresponding to it, i.e., contradicting it, must involve something like "concealedness."