or “assimilation” of τὰ παϑήματα τῆς ψυχῆς (the so-called “impressions” the soul has of things) to τὰ πράγματα (the things themselves).49 The word “truth” (Wahrheit) properly pertains only to such correct apophantic-declarative claims, and we should never follow Heidegger’s mistaken employment of that term for the other two meanings of ἀλήθεια—that is, for what he wrongly called the pre-propositional “truth” of entities and, worse yet, the “truth” of being itself.
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Heidegger argued that Aristotle was oblivious of ἀλήϑεια-1 and knew only ἀλήϑεια-2 and -3: the intelligibility of things and the correctness of statements. Heidegger would reserve to himself the discovery—or at least the re-thematization—of the hidden but ever-operative ἀλήϑεια-1. Parmenides did indeed have a sense of ἀλήϑεια-1 as the aboriginal all-enabling openness (“well-rounded ἀλήϑεια”: fragment 1.29), but he failed to inquire into what accounts for that openness: the thrown-openness or appropriation of ex-sistence. Likewise Heraclitus: The farthest he got was the intrinsic hiddenness of that ϕύσις/ἀλήϑεια-1. He declared, “ϕύσις prefers to remain hidden” (fragment 123). Heidegger renders that phrase as follows: “Intrinsic concealment is the innermost essence of the movement of appearing,”50 where “the movement of appearing” refers to the emergence of being, understood as the ϕαίνεσϑαι of things. Heraclitus knew that the dimension that accounts for all forms of Sein (whatever that dimension might be) was intrinsically hidden, but he failed to understand why. It remained for Heidegger to see that Ereignis, the thrown-openness of ex-sistence, can never come into the open (a fact that Heidegger called Ent-eignis) precisely because it is the necessarily presupposed reason why there is an open at all.51 Thus Heidegger can claim, with regard to both the pre-Socratics and the classical fourth-century philosophers, “With appropriation one is no longer thinking with the Greeks at all.”52 Therefore, it is important to note the crucial difference Heidegger sees between ἀλήϑεια-1 in the pre-Socratics and ἀλήϑεια-2 in Aristotle.
49. Aristotle, De interpretatione 1, 16a6–8.
50. GA 15: 343.24–25 = 46.18–19: “das Sichverbergen ist das innerste Wesen der Bewegung des Erscheinens [eines Seienden].” See his various paraphrases of this at GA 15: 343.23–31 = 46.17–24. Heidegger expresses the intrinsicness of the unknowability of the clearing with the statement (which is potentially misleading because of the faux reflexive) “diese Verborgenheit sich in sich selbst verbirgt”: GA 6:2: 319.1–2 = 214.8, my emphasis.
51. As that which accounts for everything human, Ereignis (the appropriation of ex-sistence to its thrown-openness) is, in itself, “Enteignis,” which is Heidegger’s way of saying that appropriation is intrinsically hidden (“withdrawn”) and does not appear at all: GA 14: 27.35–28.5 = 22.31–23.3. Translating “Enteignis” as “expropriation” says nothing at all.
52. GA 15: 366.31–32 = 61.4.