the right way and path. The ordinary Greek word for "way" is ἡ ὁδός, from which derives ἡ μέθοδος, our borrowed word "method." But ἡ μέθοδος does not mean for the Greeks "method" in the sense of a procedure with the aid of which man undertakes an assault on objects with his investigations and research. Ἡ μέθοδος is to-be-on-the-way, namely on a way not thought of as a "method" man devises but a way that already exists, arising from the very things themselves, as they show themselves through and through. The Greek ἡ μέθοδος does not refer to the "procedure" of an inquiry but rather is this inquiry itself as a remaining-on-the-way. In order to discern this essence of "method" understood in the Greek manner, we must first recognize that the Greek concept of "way," ὁδός, includes an element of per-spect and pro-spect. "Way" is not "stretch" in the sense of the remoteness or distance between two points and so itself a multiplicity of points. The perspective and prospective essence of the way, which itself leads to the unconcealed, i.e., the essence of the course, is determined on the basis of unconcealedness and on the basis of a going straightaway toward the unconcealed. Ἀ-πάτη is detour, by-way, and off-way, making available another prospect and supporting it in such a manner that, as way, it might indeed be the one going "straightaway" toward the unconcealed. The by-way and the off-way let us encounter what is not shown amid the appearances on the right way. But insofar as the off-way does show something, it exchanges what it shows for what is properly to be shown by the way leading straightaway on. Through this exchange [Vertauschung] the off-way deceives [täuscht] as off-way, owing to which ἀπάτη, deception, arises in the first place. Ἀπάτηθῆναι means to be led on a by-way and an off-way in such a fashion that the thing to be experienced is dissembled. Ἀπάτη, too, is a manner of concealment, namely a kind of dissembling that conceals by distorting. Every hiding and dissembling is, to be sure, a concealing, but not every concealing is a hiding in the sense of dissembling and distorting.
If, accordingly, unconcealedness might still be related to other ways of concealment, then there would result an essential relation which to our way of thinking would mean that falsity and dissembling (and consequently untruth understood in those terms) are not the only opposites to truth at all, presupposing of course that we take the essence of truth as unconcealedness, i.e., disclosiveness. But were the Greeks themselves aware of other modes of concealment besides dissemblance (ψεῦδος)? Certainly. Their way of speech attests to it. We are familiar with their ordinary words κεύθω, κρύπτω, καλύπτω: to shelter, to conceal, to veil. Iliad, XXII, I 18: Troy "hides" rich treasures. Odyssey, IX, 348: the boat of Odysseus has a "cache" of precious wine. Odyssey, VI, 303: house and court give "haven" to the entering ξεῖνος. Such ways of sheltering and concealing belong to the sphere of everyday
1. Ibid , XIV, n 158, p 80