being to speech—but [only] with a view to things, for the sake of comprehending them as such. Nonetheless, even in [merely] naming being, [metaphysics’ guiding] question is already giving an interpretation of being—right there, in the essential word with which it names being.17
To see how Heidegger sorted out the meta-metaphysical thrown-open clearing that makes the very being of things possible, we investigate three crucial terms that guided his retrieval: (1) ἀλήϑεια, (2) ἰδέα/εἶδος, and (3) οὐσία.18
1. ἀλήϑεια
How should we translate the Greek noun ἀλήϑεια and the adjective ἀληϑής? Throughout much of his career Heidegger unfortunately rendered ἀλήϑεια by the German word Wahrheit—that is, “truth”—and he did so despite his own warnings in Being and Time and elsewhere that to do so was to distort what ἀλήϑεια originally meant.
To translate this word as “truth” . . . is to cover up the meaning of what, for the Greeks, constituted the “self-evident” pre-philosophical basis for understanding the use of the term ἀλήϑεια.19
Neither the Latin word veritas nor our German word Wahrheit contain the least echo of what the Greeks saw in advance and experienced when they spoke about . . . ἀλήϑεια.20
It was only at the end of his career that Heidegger acknowledged his mistake.
̓Αλήϑεια thought as ἀλήϑεια has nothing to do with “truth”; rather, it means disclosedness. What I said back in Being and Time about ἀλήϑεια already goes in this direction. ̓Αλήϑεια as disclosedness had already occupied me, but in the meantime the word “truth” slipped in between.21
In any case one thing becomes clear: To raise the question of ἀλήϑεια, of disclosedness as such, is not the same as raising the question of truth. For this reason, it was inadequate and consequently misleading to call ἀλήϑεια, in the sense of the clearing, by the word “truth.”22
17. GA 73, 1: 84. 24–31.
18. Heidegger names these terms at GA 73, 1: 85.13–14 and spells them out through ibid., 87.7. I supplement his treatment with other texts of his.
19. SZ 219.33–37 = 262.26–29: verdecken den Sinn; vor-philosophisches Verständnis; selbst-verständlich.
20. GA 45: 98.8–12 = 87.20–24: “Weder . . . veritas noch. . . . Wahrheit.”
21. GA 15: 262.5–10 = 161.31–34: “nichts zu tun” and “schob sich dazwischen.”
22. GA 14: 86.16–20 = 70.2–5: “nicht sachgemäß und demzufolge irreführend.”