On Heidegger’s Aletheiology: A Response to Tugendhat
Heidegger’s theory of truth is one of the most complex in his philosophy, yet it is also one of the most important. Only recently has his understanding of truth been illustrated in greater detail through the publications of his numerous lecture courses. Heidegger states that the primordial origins of truth are to be found not in the correspondence of subject and object, but in the concept of uncovering, in the sense of the Greek word aletheia. Heidegger contends that the truth of a being is uncovered from out of its hiddenness when it is asserted. However, because Dasein (the ontologically neutral term for a human) is finite, any entity which is uncovered will still be partially covered and remain unavailable to Dasein. Ernst Tugendhat wrote a critique of Heidegger’s theories where he praises Heidegger for having gone beyond intentionality and the subject/object dichotomy, but worries Heidegger may have turned truth into a meaningless concept by not definitively articulating the difference between unconcealment as truth and concealment as false.
This essay will begin by explicating Heidegger’s theory of truth as explained in Sein und Zeit and Heidegger’s lectures from around that period. Next, Tugendhat’s critique will be examined, and its two central thesis illuminated. Finally, I will respond to Tugendhat’s concern for the stability of truth, by grounding unconcealment in Dasein’s interpretive understanding.
Heidegger begins by analyzing the history of truth in ontology. Western ontology has traditionally deciphered the ‘locus’ of truth in the assertion (“The cat is on the chair”). Truth is defined as the agreement between the judgment and its object. Yet, at face value, this seems like a general and empty logical formula. What is this agreement contained in the assertion, and how does it manifest itself phenomenally?
When one says, “The cat is on the chair”, what is being expressed is that the subject (cat) agrees with the predicate (on the chair). The predicate is a determination of the subject; it de-limits the subject’s Being in order for it to be manifest as it is. Better yet, the predicate appropriates the subject ‘so-as’ to present the subject as such and such a being. But neither one is more primary than the other. For if one were to just say “the cat” without determining it, one would hardly be saying anything. At the same time, merely saying “on the couch” is just as ambiguous. It is only when the subject and predicate come together (in the sense of convenientia) that something is expressed, i.e., the truth of assertion. “The cat is on the couch.” The ‘is’, the copula, brings the subject and predicate together so that they belong together as a whole. Yet, how does the copula accomplish this?
“The primary signification of ‘assertion’ is a ‘pointing out’” (BT 196). Here, Heidegger follows the etymology of assertion to its roots in the logos as apophasis, i.e., letting an entity be seen from itself. When an assertion is made, its primary purpose is to point at and reveal the entity asserted in itself. “The logos lets something be seen (phainesthai), namely, what the discourse is about” (BT 56). However, an entity can only be revealed in an assertion if it is available for circumspective concern; in other words, an entity can only be revealed if it is already “there”, or in German, “da”. “The pointing-out which assertion does is performed on the ground [grund] of what has already been disclosed in understanding or discovered circumspectively … it always maintains itself on the basis of In-der-Welt-seins [Being-in-the-world]” (BT 199). Only if an entity is already ‘da‘, can it be disclosed by In-der-Welt-seins. But what does this have to do with the copula? The copula is that which points out the belonging-together of a subject with a predicate, but it can only do this if the subject and predicate are already in each case available to disclosedness as such. While the copula’s function is to point out, it accomplishes this through its structure of indifference. The copula has haunted Western ontology precisely because it appears indifferent in its signification. But this is not a defect; on the contrary, the copula’s indifference is precisely its indeterminacy, and this indeterminacy allows it to express the meaning of all propositions that are always already available to Dasein. “Before being uttered in the proposition, the ‘is’ has already received its differentiation in factual understanding” (Basic Problems of Phenomenology 211).
When Dasein asserts something, it is asserting itself towards the thing itself. “Asserting is a way of Being towards the Thing itself that is” (BT 260). This does not mean that Dasein is a subject that looks outside itself at an object. Dasein, as In-der-Welt-seins, is always already ‘in’ a world. The ‘in’ signifies the Being-alongside entities in such a way that Dasein “resides” or “dwells” among entities one is already familiar with. The pointing out of assertion never looks outside Dasein, because Dasein is always already with the entities being pointed out.
The pointing out of assertion is grounded in Dasein’s existential structure as the being that uncovers entities in their unconcealment. To say that an entity is true is to say that the entity has been uncovered. The Greek word for ‘truth’ is “aletheia,” which means to be revealed, to be uncovered from out of its concealment. A-letheia means that an entity is taken out of its concealment (lethe), or wrested away from those modes of Dasein whereby an entity ‘escapes notice’. “Truth (uncoveredness) is something that must always first be wrested from entities. Entities get snatched out of their hiddenness. The factical uncoveredness of anything is always, as it were, a kind of robbery” (BT 265). If an entity is to be uncovered by Dasein, it must first be hidden from Dasein. Furthermore, because of Dasein’s inherent finitude, an unconcealed entity will always remain partially concealed. Heidegger is mainly concerned with the “how” of unconcealment: how are entities uncovered as such?
Recall that, in order for entities to be asserted as ‘true’ or ‘false’, they must already be ‘da‘ for circumspective concern. At the same time, Dasein’s primary mode of Being is In-der-Welt-seins. In-der-Welt-seins is grounded in disclosedness. To be dis-closed means to be open to the ‘da’, specifically to be open to one’s ownmost possibility for Being-there. “As Being-in-the-world it [Dasein] is cleared in itself, not through any other entity, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing” [emphasis added](BT 171). The German word for disclosedness is “erschliessen”; to disclose something is “to lay it open,” while disclosedness means “the character of having been laid open.” Dasein itself is the clearing, and as this clearing, opens a world where entities can be encountered. Encountering something means freeing it from concealment, by grounding it with an involvement in a ‘world’. World here refers to the pre-ontological existentiell world known as the environment of Dasein. The environment, or Umwelt, of Dasein is the world of one’s everyday circumspective concern. Yet, the Umwelt is still a derivative form of world. The existential-ontological definition of world is the a priori letting-be. Letting-be allows entities to be in such a way that they become uncovered ‘in a world’. Dasein has a ‘world’ because, as In-der-Welt-seins, it has always already cleared a ‘space’ through which entities are let-be what they are as unconcealed. How entities are uncovered is determined by Dasein’s disclosedness; therefore, disclosedness is the most primordial phenomena of unconcealment.
Disclosedness in general belongs to the whole of In-der-Welt-seins. It is equiprimordial with Dasein’s existential constitution of the world, In-Sein, and the Self. “In so far as Dasein is its disclosedness essentially, and discloses and uncovers as something disclosed to this extent it … is ‘in the truth’” (BT 263). This statement is purely an ontological statement. Dasein’s Being qua Sorge [Care] is always already disclosed to it, as long as Dasein is.
To understand the full weight of the statement ‘Dasein is in the truth’, one must look at Dasein’s Being: Sorge. Is it any wonder that Heidegger waited until after he had articulated the Being of Dasein as Sorge to introduce his understanding of unconcealment? “In its very structure, care is ahead of itself – Being already in a world – as being alongside entities within-the-world” (BT 263). Let us look at these elements in their constitutive elements.
As Sorge, Dasein exists as “Being-ahead-of-itself.” Dasein is ahead-of-itself because to Dasein’s basic state-of-Being belongs understanding. Heidegger is not concerned with ontic dispositions like understanding the essence of an entity. Heidegger is specifically concerned with the ontological structure of understanding as an existentiale, whereby Dasein understands the possibility of Dasein itself. “The Being-possible which is essential for Dasein, pertains to the ways of its solicitude for Others and of its concern with the ‘world’ …, and in all these, and always, it pertains to Dasein’s ability-for-Being towards itself, for the sake of itself” (BT 183). The existential structure of understanding is called projection, in German, “entwurf.” Entwurf means a throwing ahead of oneself a possibility. This throwing ahead is itself the possibility of having any possibility, an ability-for-Being, or Seinkonnen. “Projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such. As projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities” (BT 185). In disclosedness, Dasein always already projects its ownmost possibility ahead-of-itself so that it may encounter itself. “Care, as a primordial structural totality, lies ‘before’ [“vor”] every factical ‘attitude’ and ‘situation’ of Dasein, and it does this existentially a priori; this means that it always lies in them” (BT 238). If Dasein is ‘in the truth’, it has projected itself ahead-of-itself in concealment, and this projection sketches out possibilities by letting them be in unconcealment.
Equiprimordial to understanding, as Sorge, Dasein “has in each case already been thrown into a world” by its facticity (BT 236). “Whenever Dasein is, it is as a Fact [Factum]: and the factuality [Tatsachlichkeit] of such a Fact is what we shall call Dasein’s facticity” (BT 82). The Fact of facticity is that Dasein understands itself as having a definite and finite set of possibilities, with regards to Being-in-the-World. Dasein’s facticity is disclosed through its Befindlichkeit, or the ‘state one may be found’. Because Dasein is factical, it always finds itself thrown into the world. “Thrown” in German is “wurf”, which is the root for Entwurf. But thrownness is not the same as projection, because Dasein is thrown into a world that is already provided by projection. Dasein’s thrownness is a dissemination of itself into an already existing world. “In every case Dasein, as essentially having a Befindlichkeit, has already got itself into definite possibilities” (BT 183). In its dissemination, Dasein becomes attuned to the world in such a way that it de-termines its possibilities. Therefore, if Dasein is ‘in the truth’, its facticity has determined how Dasein is able to uncover anything at all.
Along with understanding and facticity, Dasein’s Being is falling. In German, Verfallen means “falling prey to.” Dasein falls prey to those entities that reside along side it. Dasein becomes lost in the entities in which it is absorbed, so that it turns away from itself as an ownmost ability-for-Being. Heidegger characterizes falling as a movement of Dasein away from itself. “Dasein plunges out of itself into itself, into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness” (BT 223). In falling, Dasein attempts to close itself from itself as disclosedness; Dasein conceals itself. This opens up a new possibility for the statement ‘Dasein is in the truth’. We have already stated that in uncovering something, Dasein inherently also conceals. Because Dasein is essentially falling, Dasein is ‘in the untruth’. This statement is meant ontologically, and does not pose a negative connotation on the notion of unconcealment. In order for Dasein to close itself off, it must have already been disclosed to itself. Here we find the radical understanding of aletheia as unconcealment. Unconcealment is not the correspondence between subject and object, but the letting-be of something in disclosure. Heidegger’s understanding of letting-be allows for entities to have a givenness for disclosure before any subject/object dichotomy. At the same time, in taking some beings out of concealment, one must put others back into concealment. The givenness of any entity is grounded on Dasein’s Being. The movement of Dasein known as falling puts a definite tension between what is uncovered and how it is uncovered, because this movement is continuous in Dasein. Furthermore, by saying Dasein is ‘in the truth’, one must say, “’There is’ truth only in so far as Dasein is and so long as Dasein is. Entities are uncovered only when Dasein is; and only so long as Dasein is, are they disclosed” (BT 269). “There is” in German is “es gibt”, and it is one of the few times Heidegger uses this word in all of Being and Time. Es gibt can also be translated as “it gives.” Heidegger uses this word to express Being itself. The “it” refers to Being without reducing it to an entity. “’Es gibt’ truth” means Being gives truth. Like Being, ‘truth’ cannot be described as some entity present-at-hand. Unconcealment must be understood as a “giving,” in the sense of a gift being presented from somewhere towards somewhere. This “giving” is temporality. “We shall point to temporality as the meaning of the Being of that entity which we call ‘Dasein’” (BT 38). “’Es gibt’ truth” means Being gives unconcealment in the disclosedness of Dasein.
Ernst Tugendhat raises important questions with regards to Heidegger’s understanding of ‘truth’, in his essay “Heidegger’s idea of truth.” Tugendhat begins by analyzing Heidegger’s initial argument concerning the truth of a propositional assertion. Tugendhat discovers three sentences that indicate the ‘truth-value’ of an assertion, but which also get progressively shorter so as to be less redundant. These are (Heidegger’s idea of truth 230-231)(HIT):
- ‘‘The assertion is true when it so indicates or discloses the affairs just as it is in itself.’’
- ‘‘The assertion is true means: it discloses the state of affairs in itself.’
- ‘‘The assertion is true means: it uncovers the state of affairs.’’
Tugendhat points out that (1) and (2) are well within the traditional theories of truth up to Husserl. Furthermore, the ‘so-as’ explicit in (1) is already implicit in (2), “for, since the correspondence, when it proves correct, is an identity, one can, when the assertion points out the state of affairs in the same way as it is itself, also simply say: it captures the state of affairs in itself” (HIT 230-231). It is only with (3) that Heidegger steps beyond the limits of traditional metaphysics and reaches his own concept of ‘truth’. “The Being-true (truth) of the assertion must be understood as Being-uncovering. Thus truth has by no means the structure of an agreement between knowing and the object in the sense of a likening of one entity (the subject) to another (the Object)” (BT 261). (3) allows for ‘truth’ to be grounded not in something present-at-hand (the entity in itself), but in Dasein’s circumspective disclosure. Heidegger is able to drop the “in itself”, precisely because he has already defined the assertion as a “pointing out.” “If … we understand the assertion as a pointing out and an uncovering, it then seems to be sufficient if we say without further qualification: the assertion is true if it uncovers the entity, for, if it is false, it does not uncover the entity at all but ‘covers it up’ or ‘conceals’ it” (HIT 232). It is with the word “uncover” that Tugendhat asks us to pause.
Tugendhat sees a conflict in the ways Heidegger employs the term uncover. In a general instance, “uncover” refers to pointing out in the sense of apophainesthai. “In this sense every assertion uncovers, the false just as well as the true” (HIT 232). However, and equiprimordial with, Heidegger uses “uncover” “in a narrow and pregnant sense, in accordance with which the false assertion is not so much an uncovering as a covering over” (HIT 232). In this sense, the false assertion covers up an already uncovered entity. Tugendhat questions how one is to determine how the false assertion can uncover and cover up anything. “One has to say: it covers up the entity as it is itself and indeed in such a way that it uncovers it in another way, namely not in the way in which it is itself” (HIT 233). It appears Heidegger cannot get around the supplement ‘as it is itself’ in describing an assertion.
Tugendhat continues by analyzing section 44b of Being and Time. In this section, Heidegger applies the uncovering of the assertion to all of Dasein’s disclosedness so that anything disclosed is automatically true. “The question is no longer one of determining whether it is possible to find, in the realm of circumspective concern, a difference corresponding to that between the true and the false assertion. Rather, simply because it uncovers, concern is in general characterized as a mode of truth” (HIT 236). With this, Heidegger has closed off the question of truth. “If truth means unconcealment,” Tugendhat writes, “in the Heideggerian sense, then it follows that an understanding of world in general is opened up but not that it is put to the test” (HIT 238). Tugendhat is mainly concerned that if the most original ‘truth’ means any disclosure whatsoever, by what means can this be called ‘true’? How can one be certain of this ‘truth’? What normative function does ‘truth’ have anymore?
Unlike Tugendhat, I am not convinced that Heidegger’s theory of ‘truth’, which should be called a theory of aletheia, is untenable. Tugendhat’s theses are as follows: (1) in order for there to be a distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ assertions, the ‘as it is itself’ must be retained otherwise the pregnant sense of uncover is lost; and (2) if all ‘truth’ is grounded in Dasein’s disclosedness,inquiring into the ‘truth’ of disclosedness would be inquiring into the ‘truth’ of a ‘truth’, thereby making ‘truth’ a meaningless concept.
The first thesis examines an important area where Heidegger distances himself from Husserl. However, section 44a must always be reexamined after reading section 44b, because it is in the latter that Heidegger grounds “uncovering” in Dasein’s disclosedness. Dasein’s disclosedness belongs to understanding. “The projecting of the understanding has its own possibility” Heidegger writes, “that of developing itself. This development of the understanding we call ‘interpretation’” (BT 188). The interpretation that Heidegger is talking about is not the interpretation found in philology textbooks. “It is rather the working-out of possibilities projected in understanding” (BT 189). Through interpretation Dasein is able to understand its ownmost possibility for existing, and all existing is always already in a ‘world’, alongside entities. Interpretation articulates the significance of a ‘world’, whereby the ‘world’ means something ‘in’ Dasein’s factical comportment. “Meaning is that wherein the intelligibility of something maintains itself” (BT 193). Interpretation maintains meaning through its as-structure. When an entity is encountered, it is encountered for Dasein. “If we tell what it is for, we are not simply designating something; but that which is designated is understood as that as which we are to take the thing in question” (BT 189). When something is uncovered in an assertion, it is uncovered as interpreted. Dasein ‘sees’ entities as a chair for sitting, as a table for studying, etc. Uncovered entities have an involvement within-the-world which is dis-closed to Dasein’s interpretation. In this way, an entity is uncovered if it has an involvement within-the-world; while an entity is covered over when it loses this involvement.
So far, we have implicitly found the difference between what is ‘true’ as uncovered and ‘false’ as concealed, by grounding the difference in interpretation. What is first ‘grasped’ by understanding is its own limit. Dasein’s own limit is its ability not to be. This is the concealment Dasein first encounters in its projection. In interpretation, Dasein wrests, in the sense of aletheia. both its ownmost ability-for-Being and entities within-the-world out of concealment. Dasein does this through the fore-structure: fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception. Since Dasein is always already ahead-of-itself, interpretation is grounded in what we have in advance, what we see in advance, and what we grasp in advance. The question of difference between ‘truth’ and ‘false’ can be found explicitly in fore-structure. “When something is understood but still veiled, it becomes unveiled by an act of appropriation, and this is always done under the guidance of a point of view, which fixes that with regard to which what is understood is interpreted” [emphasis added](BT 191). This ‘act of appropriation’ is fore-having. Through fore-having, Dasein’s ownmost ability-for-Being is projected, and an Umwelt, with its wholeness of significations, is disclosed for Dasein. However, what is available for interpretation is always de-limited by its ‘point of view’ or fore-sight. In fore-sight, entities are uncovered from out of concealment or covered over for concealment. Furthermore, entities are first grasped in their unconcealment through fore-conception; fore-conception dis-closes the entity as something. The as-structure of the uncovered entity is let-be for dis-closure by the fore-structure. At the same time, the as-structure of the concealed entity is closed off from disclosure, and it is closed off because it lacks meaning within-the-world. If I say, “The baseball is round” I have covered over the everyday understanding of baseball as a throwing tool; at the same time, I have uncovered the baseball as present-at-hand. Whether the baseball is uncovered or covered depends on Dasein’s interpretive disclosure of the world. Furthermore, because of Dasein’s finitude, Dasein is always already both dis-closed and concealed. The pregnant sense of uncover is implicit without the ‘as it is itself’. It is because of this, that Heidegger drops the ‘as it is itself’. It is not that it is redundant, but in fact, it is derivative of an existential understanding of unconcealment. If one adds ‘as it is itself’, one has immediately covered over the entity by ignoring the Dasein’s interpretation of the entity; the entity becomes something extant present-at-hand. By leaving off the ‘as it is itself’, Heidegger has guided us towards an understanding of ‘truth’ grounded in Dasein’s own disclosure.
This brings us to Tugendhat’s second thesis: if all ‘truth’ is grounded in Dasein’s disclosedness, ‘truth’ becomes a meaningless concept. This, however, would only be a problem if Dasein’s disclosedness, as the ground of unconcealment, was something present-at-hand and could be viewed categorically, i.e., as something determinate. In categorial logic, truth as correspondence is grounded in the extremes of Being qua eternal image and Nothing qua negation. The existential logic employed by Heidegger specifically analyzes that which is not determinant: Dasein as In-der-Welt-seins. Being-indeterminant means “being held out into the nothing” (“What Is Metaphysics” 91). Nothing is not seen here as a mere negation of the totality of beings; rather, “the nothing makes possible the manifestness of beings as such” and “it belongs to their essential unfolding as such” (ibid). The Nothing is the ground upon which possibilities are disclosed to Dasein in its indeterminacy.
Dasein is disclosed because it is ‘in’ unconcealment. Unconcealment is an existentiale, indeterminate, grounded in the abyss of Nothingness; it cannot be viewed as something present-at-hand. Therefore, ‘es gibt‘ unconcealment. What is given through unconcealment? The meaning of Being. Therefore, unconcealment is definitely not meaningless. However, neither is it given. Disclosedness in general can remain concealed from us, as it often does in the modern age, but this does not render it meaningless. Heidegger does the opposite of what Tugendhat suggest, and grants ‘truth’ qua unconcealment, a polysemic function which allows it to have meaning in the seemingly endless variations of ontic life. The Truth of the Ancient Egyptians is neither more nor less true than the Truth of modern technology. What is True, is that both groups had the existential-ontological ability to uncover meaning from out of the abyss which Dasein is grounded.
Works Cited
Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. By here: https://amzn.to/4aMq4qW
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: HarperPerennial/Modern Thought, 2008. By here: https://amzn.to/4aXyHyX
Heidegger, Martin. “What Is Metaphysics?” Pathmarks. Ed. William McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. By here: https://amzn.to/41UYxQ6
Tugendhat, Ernst. “Heidegger’s Idea of Truth.” Critical Heidegger. Ed. Christopher E. Macann. London: Routledge, 1996
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