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Being and Time

entities are of Dasein's kind of Being is the understanding of Being possible as an entity.


44. Dasein, Disclosedness, and Truth

From time immemorial, philosophy has associated truth and Being. Parmenides was the first to discover the Being of entities, and he 'identified' Being with the perceptive understandmg of Being: τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἔστιν τε καὶ εἶναι,xx Aristotle, in outlining the history of how the ἀρχαί have [213] been uncovered,xxi emphasizes that the philosophers before him, under the guidance of 'the things themselves' have been compelled to inquire further: αὐτὸ τὸ πρᾶγμα ὡδοποίησεν αὐτοῖς καὶ συνηνάγκασε ζητεῖν.xxii He is describing the same fact when he says that ἀναγκαζόμενος δ᾽ ἀκολουθεῖν τοῖς φαινομένοιςxxiii—that he (Parmenides) was compelled to follow that which showed itself in itself: In another passage he remarks that these thinkers carried on their researches ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς τῆς ἀληθείας ἀναγκαζόμενοι,xxiv—"compelled by the 'truth' itself". Aristotle describes these researches as φιλοσοφεῖν περὶ τῆς ἀληθείαςxxv—" 'philosophizing' about the 'truth' "—or even as ἀποφαίνεσθαι περὶ τῆς ἀληθείαςxxvi—as exhibiting something and letting it be seen with regard to the 'truth' and within the range of the 'truth'. Philosophy itself is defined as ἐπιστήμη τῆς ἀληθείας.xxvii—"the science of the 'truth' ". But it is also characterized as ἐπιστήμη, ἣ θεωρεῖ τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂνxxviii—as "a science which contemplates entities as entities"—that is, with regard to their Being.

What is signified here by 'carrying on researches into the "truth" ', by "science of the 'truth'"? In such researches is 'truth' made a theme as it would be in a theory of knowledge or of judgment? Manifestly not, for 'truth' signifies the same as 'thing' ["Sache"], 'something that shows itself' . But what then does the expression 'truth' signify if it can be used as a term for 'entity' and 'Being'?

If, however, truth rightfully has a primordial connection with Being, then the phenomenon of truth comes within the range of the problematic of fundamental ontology. In that case, must not this phenomenon have been encountered already within our preparatory fundamental analysis, the analytic of Dasein? What ontico-ontological connection does 'truth' have with Dasein and with that ontical characteristic of Dasein which we call the "understanding of Being"? Can the reason why Being necessarily goes together with truth and vice versa be pointed out in terms of such understanding?

These questions are not to be evaded. Because Being does indeed 'go together' with truth, the phenomenon of truth has already been one of the themes of our earlier analyses, though not explicitly under this title. In


Being and Time (M&R) by Martin Heidegger