not be in error about the state of affairs if he is to be able to say what is not the case. This sort of "false statement" is not erroneous but is, rather, misleading. We also call a person "false." We say, "The police made a false arrest," and here "false" means "wrong." Yet the falsely arrested, the wrong man, does not have to be a "false man" in the sense of one who behaves in a cunning way and who poses everywhere as someone he is not. And, in the sense of the wily, we also call animals "false." All cats are false. The feline is "the" false; hence the origin of speaking, as Germans do, of "cats' gold" and "cats' silver."
The Greek ψεῦδος has many meanings, just as does our word "false." This becomes apparent if we attempt to elucidate the foreign word "pseudonym." Literally translated, this ψεῦδος-ὄνομα is a "false name." A pseudonym, however, is no "false name," for it is in fact appropriate to the one bearing it. The term "false name" applies, rather, to an impostor, e.g., "Count So-and-so." This name is indeed supposed to cover up its bearer, although the name used by the impostor is again not a mere "cover name" like the sort of names used in military operations ("Operation Michael") or in espionage. The name of the impostor is, of course, supposed to cover, but at the same time it is to let the one who bears the name appear in grandeur and to provide for his "stepping out" under the corresponding title. To be sure, what the covering name lets appear at the same time, the grandeur, is here only "semblance." In contradistinction to the impostor's name, the genuine "pseudonym" actually manifests something of the "true being" of its bearer. The "pseudonym" also covers up, but in such a way that it indicates simultaneously the recondite, concealed essence of the author and his literary task. The genuine pseudonym does not simply make the author unknown; it is meant, rather, to call attention to his concealed essence. By using a pseudonym the author expresses even more about himself than he does when he employs his "correct" name. Kierkegaard's pseudonyms ("Johannes de Silentio," "Joh. Climacus," "Anti-climacus") bring out this essence of the pseudonym and consequently the essence of ψεῦδος. Ψεῦδος involves a covering that simultaneously unveils. "False" gold looks like gold, shows itself as gold, and in doing so—though of course only by doing so—it hides what it is in truth: non-gold. The essence of ψεῦδος finds its determination in the domain of concealing, unveiling, and letting-appear.
The objection can always be raised against this understanding of ψεῦδος that it is but our "interpretation." Therefore we need to know how the Greeks themselves experienced ψεῦδος. Two places from early Greek poetry are indicative The one is from Homer's Iliad, the other from Hesiod's Theogony. The passage from the Iliad (B, 348ff.) deals with the question of whether or not Zeus's sign, lightning bolts flashing on the right, is ψεῦδος, i.e., whether he is unveiling or concealing the