PATHMARKS
But how then do matters stand with this enigmatic Ἀλήθεια itself, which has become something of an annoyance for interpreters of the Greek world, [270 {GA 9 441}] because they focus only on this isolated word and its etymology instead of thinking in terms of the matter to which such issues as unconcealment and disclosure refer? Is Ἀλήθεια as unconcealment the same as being, i.e., coming to presence? This is testified by the fact that Aristotle still means the same thing by τὰ ὄντα, beings, that which presences, as by τὰ ἀληθέα, the unconcealed. But in what way do unconcealment and presence, ἀλήθεια and οὐσία, belong to one another? Are both of the same essential rank? Or is it that presence is referred to unconcealment, but not vice versa? In this case, being would indeed have to do with disclosure, but not disclosure with being. Moreover, if the essence of truth that straightaway comes to reign as correctness and certainty can subsist only within the realm of unconcealment, then truth indeed has to do with Ἀλήθεια, but not Ἀλήθεια with truth.
Wherein does Ἀλήθεια itself belong, if it must be released from its reference to truth and being, and set free into what is proper to it? Does thinking as yet have the scope of vision even to intimate what occurs in disclosure, and especially in concealing, which all disclosure needs?
The enigmatic character of Ἀλήθεια comes closer to us, and yet so does the danger that we may hypostatize it into a fantastical world-essence.
It has indeed often been remarked that there cannot be an unconcealment in itself, that unconcealment is after all always unconcealment "for someone." It is thereby unavoidably "subjectivized."
Nevertheless, must the human being — which is what is being thought here — necessarily be determined as subject? Does "for human beings" already unconditionally mean: posited by human beings? We may deny both options, and must recall the fact that ἀλήθεια, thought in a Greek manner, certainly holds sway for human beings, but that the human being remains determined by λόγος. The human being is the sayer. Saying, in Old High German sagan, means showing, letting appear [271] and letting be seen. The human being is the being that, in saying, lets what is presencing lie before us in its presence, apprehending what lies before. Human beings can speak only insofar as they are sayers.
The oldest evidence of ἀληθείη and ἀληθής, unconcealment and unconcealed, we find in Homer, and specifically in connection with verbs of saying. From this it has been somewhat precipitously concluded that unconcealment is therefore "dependent" upon the verba dicendi. What does "dependent" mean here, if saying is letting-appear, as are accordingly
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