THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH
present and bodily having-present, that viewing something as something [the δόξα] twists and turns, becoming sometimes distorted, sometimes not.'
However, the essential forking of the δόξα not only creates the possibility of mis-taking, but promotes this possibility in a particular way, in that the δόξα according to its own nature pre-pares [vor-bereitet] the possibility. of looking-past and must always assume this possibility, in so far as the forking involves a doubling, i.e. a sphere of free-play [Spielraum] for seeing something as something.
But the decisive step in our interpretation of Plato's elucidation of the ψεῦδος is still outstanding. We must ask: what interpretation does Plato himself give to the phenomenon of mis-taking as looking-past?
In the mis-taking of something encountered, the latter is seen as what it is not. What it is 'mis-takenly' seen as (Socrates) must thereby be in view (the Socrates as co-represented in advance). But since Theaetetus must likewise be represented in advance (otherwise what is encountered would not seem like Socrates), it does not happen in mis-taking that the represented Theaetetus is encountered as the person who is coming towards the observer, and to whom the latter is actually turned. Instead, the holding-to Socrates is a passing-by of Theaetetus: οἷον τοξότην, says Plato (194 a 3), like an archer who misses the mark, here I hit Socrates instead of Theaetetus. So mis-taking does not hit what is made-present in advance. It is a missing of the mark, a failure of the intended predicate. Missing the mark is a failure of direction: a being-un-correct. The mis-taking look of the approaching person (as Socrates) is an un-correct addressing. Incorrectness in the predicate means incorrectness of the proposition. Thus Plato grasps the essence of the ψεῦδος as the un-correctness of the λόγος, of the proposition. In this way the λόγος becomes the seat and locus of the ψεῦδος. The essence of un-truth is now un-correctness, so that the mis-taking which looks-past becomes a character of the λόγος, the proposition. But untruth is the opposite of truth; accordingly, truth also must have its seat in the λόγος. Thus truth is correctness of the proposition (cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics Θ 10, 1051 b 3-5).