Winter, Week 10 Meeting (Part IV)

Truth (§44)

We didn't have time to discuss Heidegger's account of truth in detail. We did note that, according to Heidegger, truth is traditionally construed as a correspondence or agreement between assertions and entities (or ‘the world,’ or ‘reality’). By contrast, and for similar reasons as were involved in his repudiation of the traditional conception of reality, Heidegger argues that the traditional concept of truth as correspondence or agreement depends on the ability of dasein to discover entities and disclose being. Thus, he calls dasein's discovery of entities 'truth,' on account of the entities’ being ‘set free’ or ‘uncovered’ by dasein so that they can show up to it (rather than remaining covered up, in obscurity). Truth, for Heidegger, is a way of being: being-true, being-uncovering. But this is only part of Heidegger's account of truth, and it leaves out his argument. For further discussion of this section and the reality section, you should look at Richard Polt's Heidegger: an Introduction (pp. 80-84).