I disagree with this. I think Heidegger is out to tell the truth about
truth. He shows, whether imperfectly or perfectly, that people can get
their *account* of truth wrong, in spite of themselves and their being in
the truth.
Tom B.
On Mon, 9 Sep 1996, Iain Thomson wrote:
> Heidegger is wrong on truth but has true insights?
>
> So he has true insights, he just doen't have a true insight about
> truth? He does not have the truth about truth?
>
> What would the truth of truth be? What is the height of height?
> What is the weight of weight? These are nonsensical questions, in
> that they commit what Wittgenstein called the fallacy of the measure
> (you cannot have a measure of the measure. How do you know
> something is a yard long? You measure it with a yardstick. What if
> you aren't sure that your yardstick is really a yard long? You take
> your yardstick and measure it against the yardstick which is the
> official standard of measure. But how do you know that Yard is
> *really* a yard? At some point the conceptual spade turns and human
> beings rely on conventions.)
>
> There is no measure of the measure; no truth of truth. But what
> Heidegger does, following Hegel's insights into the historicity of
> truth, is to show that what we take as truth has a history; the
> contemporary idea of truth as a correct assertion is a refinement of
> the older view of truth as the adequate correspondence of assertion
> with that about which it asserts, etc. What Heidegger adds is that
> all of these notions of truth rely on and logically presuppose the
> idea of truth as disclosure, un-concealment.
>
> Iain
>
>
>
>
> In the end, Heidegger is wrong on truth. Happily, he doesn't
> profess to
>
> > have all the answers to the Question of Being. So we can at least
> take
>
> > his work and redeem it and talk intelligently about Truth, denying
> none
>
> > of his true insights.
>
> >
>
> > Chris Morrissey
>
>
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>
"For years I was held in a tiny cell. My only human contact was with my
torturers... My only company were the cockroaches and mice... On Christmas
Eve the door to my cell opened and the guard tossed in a crumpled piece of
paper. It said, 'Take heart. The world knows you're alive. We're with
you. Regards, Monica, Amnesty International.' That letter saved my life."
-- A released prisoner of conscience from Paraguay
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