HEIDEGGER AND “TRUE-BEING” IN ARISTOTLE – EXPOSITION ON THE CONFERENCE “TRUE-BEING AND THERE-BEING”
HEIDEGGER E O “SER-VERDADEIRO” EM ARISTÓTELES – EXPOSIÇÃO SOBRE A CONFERÊNCIA “SER-VERDADEIRO E SER-AÍ”
Marcos Aurélio Fernandes
UnB – Universidade de Brasília
Recebido: 27/10/2024
Received: 27/10/2024
Aprovado:17/12/2024
Approved: 17/12/2024
Publicado: 31/12/2024
Published: 31/12/2024
ABSTRACT
This reflection presents Heidegger's 1924 lecture on true-being in Aristotle. In an exegetical and hermeneutical-philosophical exercise, it seeks to explain its motives, tendencies and guiding thread and intends to capture and bring to light the presuppositions of its positions. The aim is to apprehend and understand the condition of possibility of such a position and its implications. First, it analyzes the starting points of Heidegger's consideration: truth, knowledge, science. Then, it highlights his reflections on the challenge of interpretation and the phenomenological-hermeneutic method. Then, it pursues the disposition of the exposition in its triple articulation. The course of the lecture passes through three stations: (a) judgment and truth; (b) true being and there-being; (c) modes of true being. The search for the essence of truth that begins with adequacy tends to find its end in the consideration of the relationship between the human being and the being as such. However, this dimension of the question of the essence of truth remains, in the conference, not explicitly reached.
Keywords: truth; hermeneutics; true-being; there-being.
RESUMO
A presente reflexão expõe a conferência de Heidegger, de 1924, a respeito do ser-verdadeiro em Aristóteles. Num exercício exegético e hermenêutico-filosófico, procura explicitar os seus motivos, as suas tendências e o seu fio condutor e pretende captar e trazer à luz as pressuposições de seus posicionamentos. O escopo é apreender e compreender a condição de possibilidade de tal posicionamento e suas implicações. Primeiramente, analisa os pontos de partida da consideração de Heidegger: verdade, conhecimento, ciência. Depois, ressalta as reflexões dele sobre o desafio da interpretação e do método fenomenológico-hermenêutico. Em seguida persegue a disposição da exposição em sua tríplice articulação. O percurso da conferência passa por três estações: (a) juízo e verdade; (b) ser-verdadeiro e ser-aí; (c) modos do ser-verdadeiro. A busca pela essência da verdade que começa com a concordância ou adequação tende a encontrar o seu fim na consideração da relação entre o ser humano e o ser. Entretanto, esta dimensão da questão da essência da verdade permanece, na conferência, não alcançada explicitamente.
Palavras-chave: verdade; hermenêutica; ser-verdadeiro; ser-aí.
INTRODUCTION
We would like to explain here the reasons, as the tendency and the guiding thread of a conference delivered several times by Heidegger at the Kant-Gesellschaft (Sociedade Kant) in December 1924 in various locations from Germany. An announcement from the Kant-Studien magazine, at no. 29 (1924) after a series of pronouncements which were carried out in six places between the first and first months of December: Hagen, Elberfeld, Köln, Düsseldorf, Essen and Dortmund. The conference was announced under the title “Dasein und Wahrsein nach Aristoteles (Interpretation von Buch VI der Nikomachischen Ethik)” [There-being and true-being, according to Aristotle (Interpretation of Book VI of Nicomachean Ethics]. The title “Wahrsein und Dasein” (true-being and there-being) is written at the top of the first manuscript. However, the title on the cover is inverted, just like the title of the lecture that had been announced. A note by Heidegger to the manuscript indicates that this lecture was prepared as early as the winter semester of 1923/1924. Heidegger delivered this lecture at the time when he was giving the lecture on Plato's Sophist, the text of which constitutes volume 19 of the GA (Gesamtausgabe). The lecture is found in volume 80.1 of the GA: Vorträge (Lectures). In this volume, which is devoted to the lectures given between 1915 and 1932, the text of the lecture is found between pages 57 and 80, and is followed by 30 notes in the appendix, from pages 81 to 101 (Heidegger, 2016).
We will try not only to present the fundamental features of the conference, but also to capture and bring to light the presuppositions of its positions. The aim is to aprehend and understand the condition of possibility of such a position and its implications. The motives, tendencies and guiding thread of such a conference are our starting point.
Starting points for thematization: truth, knowledge, science
The text of the conference begins abruptly: “The following consideration has the task of determining the concept of truth (Wahrheit). What is this, of which true being (Wahrsein) can be enunciated, and what does this true being actually mean?” (Heidegger, 2016, p. 57). We know how central the theme of truth will be in Heidegger’s meditation throughout his entire path of thought (Denkweg). Reflection on the essence of truth and the truth of essence will play a decisive role in his thinking. In this text from 1924, we find a still seminal reflection, which will be taken up again in a more mature way in Being and Time, in § 44 (Heidegger, 1977, 282-305). In the introduction to the conference Heidegger speaks of determining the concept of truth and asking about true being. We will see later that truth (Wahrheit) and true-being (Wahrsein) do not coincide. They are different.
In the appendix, however, we find three elaborations for the introduction. In the first elaboration (Heidegger, 2016, p. 82), Heidegger takes a less direct starting point. Truth is the privileged character of knowledge (Erkenntnis). Knowing is precisely what it is as true. Certainly, because false knowledge is not proper knowledge. But what does the expression “true” mean? With this question we seek the concept of “truth”.
In the second draft of the introduction, he states that the theme of the lecture is “Dasein und Wahrsein” (There-being and True-being). He adds that the treatment of the problem takes the corresponding investigations of Aristotle as a guiding thread. He justifies this by saying: Aristotle posed this problem radically for the first time and within the philosophical research of the Greeks brought its formulation to a certain conclusion. He then also justifies the orientation he takes in relation to Greek philosophy. This orientation is taken not only because the foundations of our present-day science go back to Greek philosophy, but also because the concepts and interrogative formulations of today’s philosophy, even where it no longer knows this, are determined by the Greeks (above all by Aristotle). To this justification Heidegger added a note that refers to theoretical and practical truth. In this same passage, he says that the conference should free (freilegen) the ground on which Kant's differentiation between theoretical reason and practical reason is based (Heidegger, 2016, p. 83).
In the third project, Heidegger starts from the fact of science and its significance for the consciousness of his time. For everyday consciousness, the validity of science appeared to be indisputable, based on its discoveries and the practical applicability of the results. He adds that science, along with art and economics, was listed among the goods of culture. The cultivation and promotion of science involves research and teaching at the university, where training for the scientific profession and vocation (Berufe) is provided. In the footnote, Heidegger alludes to Max Weber's text, Wissenschaft als Beruf (Science as a Vocation), from 1919. However, such an understanding and conception of science does not reach its essence. The question is: what is science, before all practical scope and all public estimation? Science has to do with knowledge. There is pre-scientific and extra-scientific knowledge and there is scientific knowledge. All knowledge, however, has the mode of being of the human there-being (das menschliche Dasein), belongs to it as a possibility of being. Heidegger thus starts from an existential concept of science. However, science operates as knowledge of objects (nature and history, for example). No science has itself as its theme (Heidegger, 2016, p. 84).
The science that has science as its theme or object of research is that which considers human there-being in its being, philosophy. It is concerned with the clarification of the essence of science, as well as of all pre-scientific and extra-scientific knowledge. All knowledge has truth as its goal – true knowledge is what is properly knowledge. Hence the need for a determination of the essence of truth. Knowledge is human behavior, a determination of human there-being (Dasein). The radical and difficult path to clarifying the essence of science passes through philosophy, more precisely, through a philosophizing that does not simply stick to the factually occurring sciences, but a philosophizing that thinks from the thing (cause) of science as behavior of human there-being, namely, from the relationship of this with truth (Heidegger, 2016, p. 85).
The challenge of interpretation and the phenomenological-hermeneutic method
Let us return to the text given at the conference. It says at the outset that the closest determination of the meaning of true-being leads to the there-being (Dasein) of the human being. It is to this that true-being is attributed. This is the core of the conference. The consideration of the theme from this perspective is carried out, however, through an interpretation of Aristotle's research. However, the legacy of Aristotle and the research of the Greeks is worn out in and by tradition. The relationship with historical tradition is necessary for an investigation of the very thing in question. But with regard to this relationship, Heidegger emphasizes the need to make a decision: either our seeing and questioning becomes transparent in order to obtain a genuine confrontation or we make an external and accidental use of old concepts. The decision therefore imposes an either/or, which implies our relationship with history. Either this relationship is guided by the interest in antiquarian collecting, curiosity and erudition or we realize that we ourselves are history and that we bear a responsibility towards it and its impact (Heidegger, 2016, p. 57-58).
Next, Heidegger talks about how he considers the commitment of interpretation. He says that interpretation wants nothing more than to create the opportunity for Aristotle himself to speak. However, this does not mean that interpretation should merely stick to what is left in the text. If it is found that interpretation, in relation to the text, results in saying something that is not in the text, this is not proof against interpretation. On the contrary, an interpretation is properly an interpretation when it, going through the text as a whole, comes across that which, for the gross understanding, is not in the text, that is, with that which constitutes the tacit ground and the way of seeing, from which the text was able to grow (Heidegger, 2016, p. 58).
Heidegger then returns to the problem of the conference: the concept of truth. In the concept of something lies the determination of the thing in knowledge. The determination, in which the intended thing becomes comprehensible, is carried out on the ground of a prior intuitive presentification of the phenomenon that occurs in its factual firmness (Tatbestand) [1]. Then the question arises: what factual firmness does the concept “truth” intend? Heidegger’s way of dealing with the issue is phenomenological-hermeneutic. The confrontation with tradition imposes itself as a necessity to go to the thing itself, to the phenomenon in its factual firmness. To open the field of the phenomenon, it is necessary that the research be done carefully, step by step, to access factual firmness (Heidegger, 2016, p. 58).
In the first annotation of the appendix, this need is pointed out right away. What is at stake is a look into modern philosophical scientific research. What matters is not the results, but completing and co-doing some steps along the way. The essential thing is the original questioning. The work revolves around the central concept “truth”. At stake is the connection between concept and factual certainty. What is that from which we say “true”? A first indication is given by tradition. Therefore, it is necessary to return to the radical questioning approach, namely that of the Greeks. Thus, the phenomenal field in question must be appropriated step by step, leading the consideration through tradition, back to the Greeks (Heidegger, 2016, p. 80).
In annotation 3, which brings the second project to the introduction, Heidegger says that the clarification of Aristotle's investigations on the indicated problem, that of truth, is carried out with the means of the phenomenological method, which was slowly placing philosophy on new foundations and which prioritized the treatment of research that sticks to the thing in question (sachliche Forschung), instead of proceeding with a hasty design of systems and world views (Heidegger, 2016, p. 83).
The hermeneutic aspect of the work stands out when, in the same note, Heidegger raises the question of the meaning of historical knowledge. In interpretation, it is necessary to move towards what is not there in the text, that is, towards what is not expressed. Interpretation has the task of making the unexpressed express. The hermeneutic principle of understanding a text better than the author himself understood does not constitute a diminishment of its achievement. Every great achievement is precisely not understood for what it is, otherwise it is not a great achievement. This means: the achievement is more than what the creator himself understands. Interpretation, in turn, should not expose dogmatic propositions and superficial solutions, but should walk alongside the text in the mode of investigation (Heidegger, 2016, p. 83).
In note 5, in turn, Heidegger notes something about the historical (Geschichtlich). Only that which leads to an understanding of the thing in question (zu sachlichen Verständnis) is necessary. History is not something unimportant. It is what we ourselves are. It is up to us to question radically, that is, from the appropriation of the soil. And he adds: today we are not historical precisely because we have historicism. In the relationship with history, the important thing is not to assume answers, but to learn to question. And he advances something that will appear in §2 of Being and Time (Heidegger, 1977, p. 6-11): questioning implies an interrogated (Befragte) and a questioned (Gefragte). Philosophy is investigative work that precedes the sciences; it is productive work in the proper sense of the word (Heidegger, 2016, p. 86).
The arrangement of the thematization
The starting point of the investigation is, therefore, tradition. And what does tradition say about true being and truth? It says: truth is primarily attributed to judgment. But Heidegger already points out his thesis, which presents itself as an antithesis to the position of tradition. Looking more acutely, we see that true being is not rooted in the soil of judgment, but in the soil of human there-being itself, and precisely in different ways and at different levels (Heidegger, 2016, p.58-59).
Hence follows the arrangement that the conference presents. First, it deals with judgment, speech in the sense of discourse (Rede) and true-being (I). This is the fundamental reflection. Then the consideration unfolds in a threefold manner: (a) it deals with true-being and there-being (II); (b) the modes of true-being and its privileged possibilities (III); and, finally, (c) true-being, there-being and being in reference to the task of ontology (IV). In short: the consideration progresses through three stations and is articulated in three ways between the themes (a) judgment and truth, (b) true-being and there-being and (c) modes of true-being (Heidegger, 2016, p. 59).
Judgment, discourse and true-being. Truth as agreement: realism and idealism
The first station on the path of questioning deals with judgment, speech as discourse (Rede) and true-being. In Being and Time, in § 33, Heidegger will thematize the statement (Aussage) or judgment (Urteil) as a mode derived from interpretation (Auslegung). There Heidegger will say that the analysis of the statement occupies a privileged place within the problematic of fundamental ontology, since in the decisive principles of ancient ontology the lovgo" (lógos) functioned as the only guiding thread for access to the being itself and for the determination of the being of this being. Then, he evokes the tradition, which, since ancient times, has made the statement valid as the primary and proper “place” of truth. The analysis of the statement prepares the problematic of truth. In this analysis, three meanings of statement are highlighted: (1) statement primarily means ostension (Aufzeigung) - ajpovfansi" (apóphansis); then, predication (Prädikation) or determination; and, finally, communication (Mitteilung) or declaration (Heraussage). In this way, statement is defined as determining communicating ostension (mitteilende bestimmende Aufzeigung) (Heidegger, 1977, p. 204-208).
However, let us return to the lecture of our study. The starting point is the indication: truth is a characteristic of knowledge. Tradition says: truth is the agreement of thought with objects. More precisely, to know is to judge (Urteilen). What is properly called true and, respectively, false is judgment. With this definition, Aristotle is invoked and it is said that it was he who first expressed the meaning of truth as an agreement of thought with the object; but not only that, it is also said that he would have seen that truth is attributed first and foremost to judgment; and, finally, it is emphasized that this definition corresponds to sound human understanding and that it is the basis for every closer determination of truth (Heidegger, 2016, p. 59).
Heidegger thus takes up a prejudice from the philosophical tradition as a starting point for his consideration. However, he immediately raises the difficulties that this prejudice regarding truth brings with it. How can the agreement between an experience, something immanent to the subject, and the object, with the external world, be detected and verified? This conception seems to say that the subject leaves itself, jumps outside of itself, towards the object. In order to be able to detect, to verify (feststellen), it is necessary to already know how the object appears in its aspect, which serves as a measure for what it measures. The agreement is, in fact, between what measures and what is measured. Detecting the agreement presupposes already knowing, having already seen, how the object appears, how it appears. This is what is known in knowledge. Thus, the agreement already presupposes what it should explain, knowledge (Heidegger, 2016, p. 60). How could one compare the object with the statement and vice versa if one no longer knows the object and the meaning of the statement? How could one detect or confirm agreement if the object and the meaning of the statement were not already clear? Comparison and detection of agreement come too late.
Faced with this difficulty, a shortcut is taken. One distances oneself from this conception of agreement and then says: what is known is always “in consciousness.” True knowledge is not measured by an unattainable object, but by the very lawfulness of thought. To the extent that knowledge satisfies the laws of thought, it is true. This conception of truth is designated, in contrast to the first, as critical. The first would be naive. It would also be realistic, insofar as it firmly maintains the attainability of the real object. The second, in contrast, is designated as idealist. However, realism and idealism presuppose the same thing: agreement as the meaning of truth. Realism, positioning itself in favor of it. Idealism, against it. Beyond this pure and simple opposition, the position of critical realism arises. This, as realism, states that there is a reality independent of human thought, which is knowable in it. It does not speak against the attainability of the real object. However, if naive realism presupposes this knowability of the real and reality without any restriction, critical realism demands the purification of the perception of merely subjective moments and the verification of the ideal assumptions of knowledge. It presents itself, on the other hand, as a presupposition of idealism. However, it seeks to demonstrate against idealism that the subject leaves itself for the object, respectively, that the real external world exists (Heidegger, 2016, p. 60).
Thus, realism and idealism, or their variant, objectivism and subjectivism, are positions that are based on a common basic structure: that of agreement or adequacy between statement and thing (or intellect and thing). One position (realism/objectivism) affirms the need for agreement and states that the primacy lies with the thing, since it is this that gives the measure to the statement (intellect). The other position (idealism/subjectivism) eliminates the need for agreement and affirms the primacy of the intellect (a priori forms of understanding), respectively, of the legality of thought, to which the thing, or rather, the object, is subordinated and from which it is measured (cf. Harada, 2009, p. 231).
For Heidegger, realism and idealism are two enemy brothers who work with the same presuppositions. There is even a search for a position that goes beyond this opposition. However, to the extent that this search takes the subject-object relationship as its starting point, it becomes unproductive and blind, even where several nuances are presented in the discussion. For Heidegger, presuppositions are groundless, that is, they operate without an original appropriation of the factual firmness of the phenomenon in question. Therefore, he prefers not to get entangled in the discussion, and return to the rest of the real ground, which still comes to the surface in the discussion about the concept of truth and which leads to reflection (Heidegger, 2016, p. 61).
Return to Aristotle, or rather, to the phenomenal ground of the lovgo" (logos) of everyday there-being
In annotation 1 of the appendix, Heidegger outlines the traditional discussion that revolves around the subject-object relationship and its mediations. He notes that this discussion is groundless, since the origin of the interrogative position is no longer understood. Therefore, it is necessary to return to Aristotle, to the theme of speech as discourse (Rede), which has the character of comprehensibility (Verständlichkeit), eJrmhneiva (hermēneía) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 81).
The noun eJrmhneiva (hermēneía) means “exposition”, “explanation”[2]. In this sense, eJrmhneiva (hermēneía) is the exposition that brings a message, gives news, makes something accessible, makes it known, makes known, a phenomenon in its articulation of meaning, in the manner of an explication. In the treatise on the being of the living – the o Peri; Yuchv" (Perì Psychḗs) [420b] – Aristotle says that the living needs language for two functions, on the one hand, for tasting, and on the other, for conversation: hJ diavlekto" (he diálektos). This is, in turn, in view of the best life (the most proper realization of the human living being). In this passage, eJrmhneiva (hermēnéia) is equivalent to hJ diavlekto" (he diálektos), discourse in the sense of conversation. Conversation emerges, in everyday life, from dealing with things. In conversation we address each other, calling into question the things in our dealings and putting them up for discussion. This occurs and is carried out in the mode of lovgo" ajpofantikov" (logos apophantikos), of the ostensible discourse, which shows, makes clear. The ajpovfansi" (apophansis) is, therefore, a moment of this discourse and its context in the conversation. In § 2 of the 1923 summer lecture, entitled “Ontology: Hermeneutics of Facticity,” Heidegger comments on the appropriateness of the title given to Aristotle’s treatise on the lovgo" ajpofantikov" (logos apophantikos): Peri; eJrmhneiva" (Perì hermēneías). The title is appropriate, since the lovgo" (logos) has as its fundamental function the discovery and making known of beings. The performance, the provision, the function of speech consists, precisely, in making something accessible as patent, as open and manifest. It consists of ajlhqeuvein (alētheúein): making available something that was previously hidden, covered up, as if uncovered, open, patent (Heidegger, 1995, p. 10-11; 2013, p. 17).
In note 6 of the appendix of the conference under study here, Heidegger refers to lovgo" (logos) as ajpofaivnesqai (apophaínesthai) (to show, to let and to make seen), indicating that discourse (Rede) should not be taken as communicating and expressing oneself, starting from the subject, from the consciousness about the object. The starting point should be the fundamental performance of speaking from being in the world itself and its primary mode of realization. In a footnote to this annotation, in turn, he refers to the primary discovery (primär Aufdeckung), in Greek, dhlou'n (dēloûn), and its appropriation. What matters is not subjectivity, but the in-being (In-sein). It is in this in-being, we would say, at this jumping point of being-in-the-world, that everything is played out (Heidegger, 2016, p. 86).
Returning to Aristotle, Heidegger takes up chapter 4 of the Peri; eJrmhneiva" (Perì hermēneías) (17 to ss). There the Stagirite says that all lovgo" (logos) – all discourse, all speech – is shmantikov" (sēmantikós). In Heidegger's translation/interpretation, this says: all discourse speaks of something. And Aristotle completes: not all lovgo" (lógos), however, is ajpofantikov" (apophántikós), that is, in Heidegger's terms: not all discourse on has the meaning, as discourse, of displaying, showing, declaring, leaving and making seen, about what is discoursed. Aristotle says that this happens only in the lovgo" (logos) in which subsists to; ajlhqeuvein (tò alētheúein), the true-being, the uncovering, and the yeuvdesqai (pseúdesthai), the false being, the hiding, the covering. For example, a statement can be true or false. But a request cannot. If I say something like “Please come in!” or something like “May I come in?”, such speech does not have the character of an enunciative, declarative discourse, in which true-being and false-being can subsist (Heidegger, 2016, p. 61).
At this point in his consideration, Heidegger notes that he is no longer speaking of judgment. Lovgo" (Lógos) is neither judgment – which in Greek would have its correspondence in the verb krivnein (krínein) – nor is it a concept, much less reason. That is why he is speaking, when evoking the Greek lovgo" (lógos), of discourse (Rede), of speech (Sprechen). Then, he draws attention to the fact that in Aristotle's text it is not said that judgment is primarily attributed to true-being and, respectively, false-being. True-being is so little the privilege of declaratory discourse that what happens is precisely the opposite: this discourse is precisely the condition of possibility for there to be something like false-being. This means that true-being has a more original character. Speech is not, as it speaks, true. What happens is that a certain way of speaking, a certain mode of discourse, can be true (Heidegger, 2016, p. 62).
Heidegger then says that the ostensible, declarative discourse (die aufzeigende Rede) is only one possibility of discourse, and not even the closest one. The discourse of everyday there-being is not, in fact, primarily intended to communicate knowledge about things and mediate knowledge. It is necessary to ask: what does discourse, speech, mean in the everyday being-with-each-other of human beings? The answer to this question is made possible when we become aware of the way in which speaking with and for each other is expressly realized through speech, through discourse, which certainly also implies listening to each other. Heidegger then recalls that, among the Greeks, positive research on the phenomenon of everyday discourse took place with Aristotle's Rhetoric (Heidegger, 2016, p. 62).
In chapter 3 of Book I of Rhetoric (A 3, 1358 a 36 ss) three kinds of discourse or speech are identified. 1. The speech in the assembly of the people; 2. The speech before the court; 3. The ceremonial speech. The political, deliberative speech strives to persuade and dissuade with reference to a decision. Those to whom the speech is addressed, the listeners, must be led to a conviction about the situation of the povli" (polis), from which they decide in favor of the orator's advice. Judicial discourse is accusation – kathgoriva (katēgoría) – and, respectively, defense – ajpologiva (apología). The speaker addresses the listeners as judges. He must convince the listeners to a conviction about the case he is discussing. The lovgo" ejpideiktikov" (lógos epideiktikós) – the ceremonial and ceremonial, epideictic speech, which wishes to make itself seen and to make itself seen – celebrates by bringing in praise and, respectively, rebuke. The listeners, in this case, must be amazed at what is spoken to them, they must be moved to enthusiasm and, respectively, to indignation. Such speeches do not focus on the thing they are talking about, but on the listeners. The speaker in these contexts does not aim to communicate or mediate knowledge about things, but rather aims to make the listeners reach an opinion or view about things, so that they take a position on the matter. In this case, to discourse (Reden) is to convince (Über-reden) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 63).
What do these speeches discuss? The assembly speech discusses what could be beneficial or harmful to the community and, therefore, to its members. It discusses something that is not yet there and that should be induced, respectively, avoided. The purpose of this speech is to prepare for the future. The court speech deals with what is just and unjust with respect to something that has already happened. It aims to take a judgmental position on the past. The ceremonial speech brings the listeners into the presence of something that is worthy of admiration. Thus, the speeches discuss what is future, what is past and what is present and, precisely, about that which concerns everyday there-being: respectively, the sumfevron (symphéron), that is, the useful or advantageous; the divkaion (díkaion), that is, the just; and the kalovn (kalón), that is, what is beautiful, worthy of admiration (Heidegger, 2016, p. 63-64).
These speeches tend to form opinions. At the same time, they are in one way or another tuned, in tune, in terms of mood and affective disposition, with what is being discussed in the speech. This tuning or affective disposition – pavqo" (pathos) – helps the speech lead the listener to form the conviction that the speaker intends. The speaker must appear trustworthy, benevolent and knowledgeable about the subject. His very existence must speak in favor of what he says. What is at stake here is belief (Glauben), not intellection (Einsehen). The way of speaking is not through scientific demonstrations, in the complete chain of links of foundation, but the speeches must speak to the mind of the listeners, they must be ejnquvmhma (enthýmēma) (Ret. 1356 b 2 ss). This is the meaning of the abbreviated syllogism. The thinking of the crowd is short-lived. Furthermore, it needs examples that impress. What is at stake is not showing the thing itself that is in question, but that which speaks most closely in favor of what must be offered must come to the discourse. And there are three convictions – pivstei" (písteis) – that must be offered through discourse. One kind of conviction is that which concerns the speaker's h\qo" (ȇthos), that is, his way of being and acting; another, that which concerns the pavqo" (pathos), that is, his possibility of predisposing the listener in this or that way, with regard to his way of feeling, of attuning or tuning in affectively; a third, that which concerns the deiknuvnai (deiknýnai), that is, the speech itself, insofar as it demonstrates or seems to demonstrate something (Ret. 1356 a 1ff) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 64).
Heidegger then emphasizes that what is at stake in these discourses is to help make a certain opinion about something dominant. This opinion must establish itself in public opinion and contribute to this. The speaker must speak from the dominant opinions; he takes the premises from what is thought in an average way about things. Heidegger then points out that these three types of discourse are only acute formations of the way of speaking in which everyday there-being pronounces itself on matters, events, demands that are less public but nevertheless urgent. Average discourse discourses on things, but precisely by not showing, not letting or making visible. The structure of this discourse is characterized by dovxa (dóxa), by dokei' (dokeî), that is, by opinion, by judgement. At stake is the being of such and such an opinion. The opinion one has of something corresponds to the way in which something appears and seems to me. Everyday speech has the character of favsi" (phásis), that is, of an expression that emits a voice in favor of... Therein lies the possibility that things could be different, that the opinion could be exposed as false. Here ajlhvqeia (alḗtheia), truth, has the character of ojrqovth" (orthótēs), of the rectitude of the direction of the speech that emits an opinion. Speech (Rede) has the character of chatter, of gossip (Gerede). What is at stake here is not the search, the questioning, the research, the investigation, but only the pivsti" (pístis), the conviction, the belief (Heidegger, 2016, p. 65).
The second station on the path of Heidegger's consideration concerns the theme of true-being and there-being. The starting point is the privileged possibility of ostensible discourse, that is, that which allows what is being discussed to be seen. This speech is a saying, in the sense of an appeal, of an interpellation, a calling into question (Ansprechen) something as something, for example, the room as light, the painting as black, etc. This allocution (Ansprechen) and interlocution that puts something into question as something (Besprechen) is articulated in two fundamental types of ostension: (a) with words attributing or adjudicating (Zusprechen) and, respectively, (b) with words subtracting or abjudicating (Absprechen), respectively, with affirmation and denial. Subtracting or abjudging, denial, is also a letting see, an exposing, a showing, of the thing about which the interlocution discourses. This ostensible discourse is an advance in relation to mere opinion and talk. In it, there is the discovery (Aufdecken), the ajlhqeuvein (alētheúein), the true-being. Both affirmation and denial, evidently, are possibilities of discovery. All discourse is revealing and discourses about something, but not all discourse is ostensible, that is, uncovering.j Alhvqeia (alḗtheia) literally means, in Greek, un-concealment (Un-verborgenheit). Although the meaning of this word is negative, what it means is positive. It means a privation, namely, the privation of uncovering. For the Greeks, uncovering is something that must be fought for, that must be conquered. The being is initially there, but concealed, since prevailing opinions and talk conceal it. Uncovering removes this concealment or covering. This is one possibility. A second possibility is that something was once originally open, but has become a possession known in a mediocre way. This apparent knowledge distorts, conceals the being and is obstinate, since it is persuasive. It creates and cultivates the lack of need to inquire into things again and originally, against all prejudice or bias (Heidegger, 2016, pp. 65-67).
Thus. a threefold covering (Verborgenheit) takes place: 1. As long as the world is present (gegenwärtig) only in primary and closer views; 2. As long as in many areas of being there is a proper lack of knowledge, a not yet being familiar; 3. As long as that which had once been freed from concealment has again immersed itself in it through the domination of chatter and worn-out concepts. Accordingly, the ajlhqeuvein (aletheúein), that is, true-being in the sense of the discovering being, of the uncovering being, can take place (1) as an opening that advances, starting from the dominant views, in which in most cases a piece of something that has been genuinely seen is included; (2) as a revealing penetrating into regions of being that were previously concealed; (3) as a fight against gossip, which passes itself off as insightful and knowledgeable (Heidegger, 2016, p. 67).
Heidegger then adds that the Greeks had an original understanding of truth as an uncovering not only in linguistic expression but also in their way of being in the world. The struggle of the greatest among them against sophistry and rhetoric attests to a spiritual confrontation of the Greeks with themselves and their existence. The tendency to advance towards the things themselves in Socrates and Plato, according to Heidegger, was held back by concealing talk; research was still attached to concepts of words and tradition. The great step above and beyond Plato was taken by Aristotle, who showed the fundamental phenomenon of being as world, movement, which had not yet been properly seen and understood as a characteristic of being. With this great discovery, Greek ontology was placed on new foundations, which they had been seeking for centuries (Heidegger, 2016, p. 68).
Aristotle, speaking of the research of the ancients, says that it was a philosophizing around the ajlhvqeia (alḗtheia) (Met. G 5 1009 b 36ss). This does not mean that they set out to research what truth meant, but rather that they set out on the path to an openness that looks at the being, to a liberation of the being in the uncovering of its being. At stake was not a rethinking of the concept of truth, but rather the being in its being uncovered (Heidegger, 2016, p. 68).
Heidegger emphasizes the difference between truth and true-being. Truth, in the sense of uncovering, a ajlhvqeia (alḗtheia), is a characteristic of beings. Beings are, also when they are concealed. Being uncovered (Aufgedecktsein) is a privileged mode of the presence (Anwesenheit) of beings. The uncovering (Aufdecken), the ajlhqeuvein (alētheúein), which occurs initially and most closely in the lovgo" (lógos), in discourse, is a thing of human true-being (des menschliche Daseins). True-being, in the sense of being-discoverer, is a fundamental behavior of there-being. But, to the extent that human true-being is determined by the power to discourse, discourse can become the way of realizing discovery (Heidegger, 2016, p. 68).
In discourse, discovery is the calling into question of something as something that allows us to see. Heidegger gives an example of this calling into question. In a glance, a man appears, coming towards me on the street. What is initially given in a glance comes towards me together with the whole in an indeterminate way: a man. When called into question, he is determined as this or that. In the speech, he is shown as this or that, he is highlighted as this or that (Heidegger, 2016, p. 68-69). In annotation 13 of the appendix, Heidegger is more explicit about the example: he gives two possibilities as examples, namely, man as a friend and man as a stranger. True-being is a behavior of the human being (discovering). Discourse can be true, but to the extent that human behavior is true, that is, discovering. Primarily, it is not discourse that is true, but there-being as a seer, listener, percipient (Heidegger, 2016, p. 91).
The ostensible discourse shows something as something from that which jointly underlies the whole (we would say, from a vital and world context). That which is already given beforehand as being, as existing, as everything that presents itself in a simple presence (vorhandene Ganze), the Greeks call uJpokeivmenon (hypokeímenon), substance (Heidegger, 2016, p. 69).
It is precisely this calling into question something as something that is the condition of possibility for there to be deception (Täuschung). The structural moment “as something” is what makes it possible for something to pass itself off as something it is not and thus be perceived. In the face of what is called into question, something stands (stellt) as what it is not. Thus, a displacement occurs that conceals, something appears concealed (verstellt), distorted. What conceals, what distorts, as said (als Gesagtes), gives the appearance of discovering what is under discussion in the dialogue. The ostensive allocution, which calls into question something as something, is thus precisely that which can be false. The true-being of the statement is, according to its being, always that which avoids being-false. It is, therefore, that which passes through this possibility of being-false, which overcomes it. In the lovgo" (lógos), precisely, in the lovgo" ajpofantikov" (lógos apophantikós), in the ostensible discourse, the original true-being does not reside, that is, the original letting see that discovers. This lies, according to Aristotle, in a discovering a[neu lovgou (áneu lógou), without discourse, silent. If true-being coincides with discovering-being, then we cannot remain still next to the lovgo" (lógos), to the discourse. We must then try to understand what underlies the possibility of the lovgo" (lógos) being true. We must try to understand the noei'n (noeîn), the percipient thinking or the thinking perception. Heidegger, however, in a footnote on page 24, notes that the noei'n (noeîn), insofar as it is consummated in there-being (im Dasein) is a dianoei'n (dianoeîn), a thinking that is realized by traversing a path of discourse, a thinking metav lovgou (metà lógou), with discourse (Heidegger, 2016, p. 69).
At the end of this second station, already in transition to the third, Heidegger reaffirms: the ajlhqeuvein (aletheúein), the discovery, is eJxi" th'" yuch'" (héxis tes psychés), that is, something that the soul disposes of, that it has within itself, as a possibility. Soul, in turn, concerns the human being. This living being is characterized by the fact that it does not simply occur in the world, but rather, it is in the world in such a way that it is this world of its own. We would say: it is an opening of the world. Its soul is a jumping-off point of the world. In other words, the world in which the living being exists is there for him to a certain extent uncovered. He is in his being a discoverer. It is not in the world as a mere occurrence, as something that only exists there, as something merely available (nur vorhanden), but it is so present (gegenwärtig) that its world can come to meet it. Dasein is there-being not as the occurrence of something factual in a space but as the factual praesentia (presence) of the world (the whole of beings in their being discovered, patent). This privileged there-being, this being present to the world, is, according to Heidegger, what Aristotle had in mind when he said that the soul was ejntelevceia (entelécheia) (De anima B 1, 412 to 21 ss) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 70).
The ajlhqeuvein (alētheúein), the true-being, the discovering being, belongs to the constitution of the fundamental being of this living being, which is ourselves. By being present to the world, the world can come to meet us and can show itself as being there. A fundamental determination of this being or this living being that we are is the being in the world through the power to speaking, the power to discourse. Our life is zwhv metav lovgou (zoḗ metá lógou) – life with discourse, in the midst of discourse. It is, moreover, praktikhv (praktikḗ): being able to act, in the broad sense of the word, that is, in the sense of being able to operate, to put things into execution, to occupy ourselves with them, is a further determination of our way of being, of being present in the world and to the world. Power-acting (handeln-können), praxis, together with the uncovering of the world and of there-being in it - ajlhvqeia (alḗtheia) - characterize human presence. This then has its fundamental structure in ai[sqhsi" (aísthēsis) – in perceiving –, in o[rexi" (órexis) – in desiring – and in nou'" (noûs) – in thinking or having in the percipient mind (vernehmendes Vermeinen). Finally, Heidegger asks: what are the modes of aletheúein in the there-being of the human being? (Heidegger, 2016, p. 70).
Modes of true-being and their privileged possibilities: delimitations, articulations and levels
The third and final station on the path of this consideration is dedicated to the modes of true-being and its privileged possibilities. This is where Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics becomes the fundamental text. Heidegger worked on this theme in the 2024/2025 winter course as a propaedeutic part of the study of Plato's Sophist (GA 19) (Heidegger, 1992). According to Aristotle, there are five modes in which the soul can be-true, that is, can be-discoverer of beings (Et. Nic. Z 3, 1139 b 15 ss). These are: 1. The tevcnh (téchnē) - the understanding of, in the sense of being familiar with; 2. The ejpisthvmh (epistḗmē) – the competence of knowing in the sense of science; 3. The frovnhsi" (phrónēsis) – the circumspect intellection; 4. The sofiva (sophía) – the proper, appropriate understanding; 5. The nou'" (noûs) – thinking, in the sense of having a percipient mind. In the footnote, Heidegger refers to annotation 13 in the appendix. This notes that, in Greek, noei'n (noeîn) has to do with sniffing. In the percipient mind, the human true-being perceives as if by seeing, hearing, sniffing, something that shows itself, that is captured and that is interpreted as something. Although Aristotle says that the noei'n (noeîn), this percipient having in mind, is a[neu lovgou (áneu lógou), without discourse, ... in man, insofar as he is a living being whose life is characterized as lovgon evcon (lógon échon), as having at his disposal the possibility of discourse, the noei'n (noeîn) becomes dianoei'n (dianoeîn), that is, intuitive thinking in discursive thinking, metav lovgou (metá lógou) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 71).
Until Aristotle, says Heidegger, these modes of true-being were still indistinct. Even Plato had not reached a clear understanding of them. The Stagirite, however, sharply delimited the phenomena. Furthermore, he determined the connection between them and their level as possibilities of true-being. He does all this in a phenomenological, non-constructive way, starting from there-being itself, understanding these phenomena as possibilities of being. He reads the modes of discovery starting from there-being. He divides and articulates them starting from the phenomena themselves. Heidegger's consideration (1) proposes to pursue the way in which this reading occurs, (2) seeks to see the guiding thread of the delimitation he presents and (3) tries to understand the criterion from which Aristotle makes his ranking, determining what is the closest and most provisional and what is the highest among these modes of discovery (Heidegger, 2016, p. 71-72).
How do these modes of being-discoverer come about as possibilities of being, allowing oneself to be read from the true-being itself? Human presence initially remains in what is closest to it in its occupations, with their urgencies and needs, that is, in the use and production of things of use. It always retraces the courses of the work that produces and handles these things. It thus becomes experienced in the orientations of this journey – ejmpeiriva (empeiría). But this experienced being gradually develops an understanding concerning this producing and handling. It gradually becomes more knowledgeable about certain connections. First, the understanding of “as soon as – then” emerges. For example, in the procedure of medicine, the art of healing, the understanding primarily emerges in the sense of: as soon as such and such a state of illness appears, then such and such a means of healing is applied. Secondly, the “as soon as – then” becomes “if this – then that”. The diseased state being the same, it demands such a determined means. This orientation can become even more acute: “because this – then that”. This means a plus in understanding. This last orientation, which sticks to the why (question), is an understanding of, in the sense of becoming familiar with, it is tevcnh (téchnē). This understanding-of is present not only in the handling, treat and treatment, but also in the production of things of use. Here the understanding apprehends and gathers the form, the matter, the end and the principle that contribute to and respond to the production of the thing of use. For the Greeks, things, pravgmata (prágmata), are originally what occurs in the occupation of handling and producing, they are, above all, things of use – crhvmata (chrḗmata) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 72-73).
In the handling and production of things for use, the surrounding world is there. In wood, the forest is presented. In stone, the mountain. In water, the river and the sea. But all of this becomes visible in the sunlight. Thus, secondly, the possibility and tendency to enjoy seeing, just for the sake of seeing, arises; that is, the love of that which is given to be perceived arises. The wonder and impasse, the ajporiva (aporia) – document this tendency. The comprehensibility of handling does not reach what awakens wonder. It fails. Heidegger gives an example: we see the course of the sun and we marvel at it. But we have not discovered why it is the way it is. The world is there, but what it consists of and how it came to be remains hidden. In this wonder and in this inability to find a way, the tendency towards a discovery that penetrates the there-being of the world more broadly into its being is renewed (Heidegger, 2016, p. 73-74).
Thus, in human presence there is a double tendency to discover. One, within practical occupation. The other, free from practical purpose. In the first, what is at stake is that which can be in a different way. In the second, the being that is always there, the world, first of all, the sky. The difference regarding the mode of presence of that which is each time the “theme” of discovery is then taken as a guiding thread of the division and articulation between the modes of true-being, of discovery. Some modes concern what can be differently; others, what is always there in the same mode of its presence (Heidegger, 2016, p. 74-75).
Finally, there is the question about the ranking criterion operated by Aristotle. The criterion for establishing the levels of the modes of discovery lies in the originality of the discovery of the ajrchv (archḗ), of the principle, that is, of that which is always already in force in the being beforehand. The ajrchv (archḗ) makes the being become visible in its being. However, Heidegger asks, why precisely the ajrchv (archḗ)? The answer can be obtained if we return more acutely to what being means to the Greeks. The starting point for the understanding of being is, for them, the being of the surrounding world. Being is, primarily, being-produced, being-ready. It is, fundamentally, being present, being-available. The word oujsiva (ousía) means being, in the sense of the presence that occurs before the hand, before handling (Vorhanden). It is more precisely being that which is always already present, that is always there, ready, without the need to be produced. The word parousiva (parousía) invokes this constant, immobile, quiet presence or validity. Being therefore means validity, constant presence. The being of what is always present and valid is, for the Greeks, being itself. That which is present and in force beforehand, which is always ready and which carries out what comes to be, what is consummated, is the ajrchv (archḗ), the beginning, and the tevlo" (télos), the end (in the sense of consummation), which, in turn, is in force where what comes to be reaches the limit of its completion – pevra" (péras) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 75).
The division and articulation of the modes of true-being, in the sense of being-discoverer, is carried out from that which is discovered each time and, in being-discovered, is maintained. The being that is always what it is and how it is are related to ejpisthvmh (epistḗmē) and sofiva (sophía). The being that can be diversely is related to tevcnh (téchnē) and frovnhsi" (phrónēsis). The fifth possibility, that of pure perception, in the sense of having in the percipient mind, or nou'" (noûs), is properly possible to man only in a certain mode, namely, insofar as it is co-realized with and in the other four modes. There is a difference in ranking between the closest and most provisional modes of discovery, tevcnh (téchnē) and ejpisthvmh (epistḗme), and the highest and most definitive modes, frovnhsi" (phrónēsis) and sofiva (sophía). The first two are not in a position to operate a full discovery. Let us take tevcnh (téchnē). The entity with which the craftsman, for example, a shoemaker, relates in producing is the work, the e[rgon (ergon). In the case of the shoemaker, the work is the shoe. But the shoe, when ready, is no longer at hand, it rests outside of producing and alongside the shoemaker's handling. While ready, while having reached full, consummated, finished presence, at the limit of its completion, the shoe falls outside the shoemaker's orientation, it escapes him, and becomes the entity of another dealing with it, that of the one who will use the shoe (Heidegger, 2016, p. 76-77).
Similarly, also the ejpisthvmh (epistḗmē), the competence of science does not reach full discovery. This word means being securely placed in relation to the being. The verb ejpivstamai (epístamai) means to be able to. “I know” in this sense means: I am capable, skillful, I am in control of, I have mastery of, I do not need to look again from the beginning, I have in mind the being as it is. To the ejpisthvmh (epistḗmē) belongs the power to be taught and the power to be learned. He who learns does not need to find everything again. What is to be learned can be offered to him in the ajpovdeixi" (apodeixis), in the demonstration or proof (Beweis). Demonstration depends on ultimate propositions, axioms, principles. The ejpisthvmh (episteme) makes use of these propositions, but it does not grasp or discover them thematically. Science makes use of presuppositions and what becomes present in these positions is not the subject of its demonstration. What cannot be demonstrated, however, can be shown (Aufweis). Discourse discusses something as something. But that which is first and extreme cannot be called into question as something. Hence the discovery of principles must be conducted without discourse – a[neu lovgou (áneu lógou). A division is no longer possible here. The principle is indivisible. Here, only ejpagwghv (epagōgḗ) is valid, induction, not as a generalization, but as bringing the thing in question before a simple seeing. It is not a question, here, of a perception that is achieved through discussion, but of a pure perception, a pure noei'n (noeîn) (Heidegger, 2016, p. 77-78).
In frovnhsi" (phrónēsis) and sofiva (sophía) pure perception prevails more decisively. Circumspect intellection – frovnhsi" (phrónēsis) - grasps the action, its beginning and its end, more fully. In deliberation (Entschluss) the action is previously aimed at and visualized in its end, that is, in its being ready, in its completion. Then, it is necessary to provide that which leads to achieving what is aimed at or visualized. This requires discussion of the concrete situation. Reflection on the concrete situation in which one must act ends in a ai[sqhsi" (aísthēsis), that is, in a simple supervision of the circumstances. The end of reflection is, in turn, the beginning of action. At stake, then, is something like a practical sullogismov" (syllogismós). The major premise of the syllogism is the good of the action, for which I resolve. The minor premise is the discussion of the situation captured in a simple perception in the now, in the instant. From this double structure arises the instantaneous action. The extreme of reflection is the entry of the action. The action is the tevlo" (télos), the end, which in deliberation was anticipated as ajrchv (archḗ), principle (Heidegger, 2016, p. 78-79). Thus, circumspect intellection discovers the beginning and the end, all action. The work, in this case the action, does not fall outside of reflection, but constitutes, precisely, its consummation. Right intellection belongs to action. And vice versa: he who acts rightly manages to understand what must be put into deliberation. That which properly constitutes the good of the action does not appear except to the spoudai'o" ajnhvr (spoudaíos anḗr), to the upright man, who is diligent and careful, solicitous and serious (Heidegger, 2016, p. 79-80).
Final Remarks
Heidegger does not provide a more detailed exposition of the sofiva (sophía), of understanding. Correspondingly, the conference text does not present the fourth station that was foreseen and that concerned true-being, there-being and being in reference to the task of ontology (Heidegger, 2016, p. 59). In the course of what has been exposed, we see that the true being of the lovgo" ajpofantikov" (lógos apophantikós) is based on the true-being of the there-being, which occurs according to the five modes of the ajlhqeuvein (alētheúein), of the being-discoverer, of the behavior that discovers the being in its being. We could conclude by saying that the discovering behavior is rooted in the openness, in the open scope, of the world. But: “the open scope arises from freedom. Freedom is the essence of man. The essence of man has its foundation in being” (Harada, 2009, p. 227).
Thus, the search for the essence of truth that begins with agreement or adequacy tends to find its end in the consideration of the relationship between the human being and being. This is what occupied all of Heidegger's meditation throughout his path of thought. In the same year of 1924, in the lecture on Plato's Sophist, Heidegger opens a path of reflection in the domain of questions concerning ontology. But an ontology of there-being, that is, of the human presence in its character of true-being (opener and discoverer) will only be posed as a new attempt to ground ontology as such and as a whole with Being and Time. But let us leave a deeper look at these questions for another occasion.
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Marcos Aurélio Fernandes
Professor do Departamento de Filosofia da Universidade de Brasília. Doutorou-se em Filosofia pela Pontificia Università Antonianum de Roma (2003). Tem experiência na fenomenologia, a partir de Heidegger. Além disso, dedica-se a estudos do pensamento medieval, sobretudo o franciscano, com destaques para a mística franciscana e para o pensamento escolástico de Boaventura e João Duns Scotus. Dentre outras publicações, é autor do livro “À Clareira do Ser: Da Fenomenologia da Intencionalidade à Abertura da Existência” (Daimon Editora, Teresópolis-RJ, 2011) e do livro “Na clareira do Ser: exercícios de aclaração da existência” (CRV, Curitiba, 2024).
The texts in this article were reviewed by third parties and submitted for validation by the author(s) before publication