On Tue, 10 Sep 1996, Paul Murphy wrote:
> To claim that Heidegger's questioning concerning the essence of truth
> operates according to 'rejection of correspondance' (as Mr. Rickey
> writes), or, for that matter, that it rests on a reason / revelation
> opposition is spurious, or, at least, truncated exegesis. Heidegger
> never claims to oppose one theory of truth to all the others to show why
> they're wrong; his approach is to scrutinize the Greek 'aletheia' as
> un-concealment (and, later, as dis-closing, Ent-bergung). Dis-closing
> (essentially intertwined with concealment or sheltering (Verbergung)) is
> prior to truth of assertion, truth of correspondance, etc.; it comes to
> pass in accordance with the epochality of being, hence under the sway of
> epochal principles, but this is no simple relativism. The assertions or
> representations proper to each historical epoch may not be immutably
> true, but this does not alter the hidden (i.e., *unthought*) sense of
> a-letheia.
I reject it because correspondence and "unconcealing" are not compatible
strictly speaking. You take unconcealing to operate like a Kantian a
priori (so I would understand your "prior to") that is a category in
which various understandings of the truth are possible, one of which is
correspondence. There are in effect two levels, a category and the
particular historical determination it can take.
While Heidegger does often use the language of "prior to," to recover
truth as unconcealing is at the same time to reject truth as
correspondence because "truth" is part of whatever sending of being
occurs, and recovering truth as unconcealing is meant to bring about a
change in the sending of being. Another way of thinking about this is
that correspondence rests on thinking being as stable or fixed (in both
the active and passive sense of the term), while unconcealing thinks of
being as "being moved," historical. Because both make claims about the
truth of being, they cannot coexist.
If Heidegger can claim that truth as correspondence rests on truth as
unconcealing, that is because all epochs of truth are historical, even if
they don't know it or have forgotten it as Heidegger favors.
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
> To claim that Heidegger's questioning concerning the essence of truth
> operates according to 'rejection of correspondance' (as Mr. Rickey
> writes), or, for that matter, that it rests on a reason / revelation
> opposition is spurious, or, at least, truncated exegesis. Heidegger
> never claims to oppose one theory of truth to all the others to show why
> they're wrong; his approach is to scrutinize the Greek 'aletheia' as
> un-concealment (and, later, as dis-closing, Ent-bergung). Dis-closing
> (essentially intertwined with concealment or sheltering (Verbergung)) is
> prior to truth of assertion, truth of correspondance, etc.; it comes to
> pass in accordance with the epochality of being, hence under the sway of
> epochal principles, but this is no simple relativism. The assertions or
> representations proper to each historical epoch may not be immutably
> true, but this does not alter the hidden (i.e., *unthought*) sense of
> a-letheia.
I reject it because correspondence and "unconcealing" are not compatible
strictly speaking. You take unconcealing to operate like a Kantian a
priori (so I would understand your "prior to") that is a category in
which various understandings of the truth are possible, one of which is
correspondence. There are in effect two levels, a category and the
particular historical determination it can take.
While Heidegger does often use the language of "prior to," to recover
truth as unconcealing is at the same time to reject truth as
correspondence because "truth" is part of whatever sending of being
occurs, and recovering truth as unconcealing is meant to bring about a
change in the sending of being. Another way of thinking about this is
that correspondence rests on thinking being as stable or fixed (in both
the active and passive sense of the term), while unconcealing thinks of
being as "being moved," historical. Because both make claims about the
truth of being, they cannot coexist.
If Heidegger can claim that truth as correspondence rests on truth as
unconcealing, that is because all epochs of truth are historical, even if
they don't know it or have forgotten it as Heidegger favors.
Chris
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---