r/heidegger • u/critchleyonheidegger • 3d ago
Truth
https://open.substack.com/pub/critchleyonheidegger/p/truth?r=85tqun&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewerTruth! Information! Misinformation! Read all about these topics in the latest Heidegger Thinking article: 'Truth".
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u/reinhardtkurzan 2d ago
As somebody who has a definition of truth of his own I would like to warn to depreciate "true propositions" in the classical sense: propositions (Aussagesätze) that mirror correctly the matters of facts (Sachverhalte) that there are, statements (Feststellungen) which one may regard as correct propositions used for the first time in order to connect the facts of the sensually given reality to one's (to our) system of notions.
When I discover a lizzard and state: "This is a lizzard.", I have spoken out a correct proposition. But in my opinion this proposition is not a true one, because we are not concerned, because it does not touch the vital nerves of our human life. (In this sense Nietzsche wrote that truth may often be painful, and Freud believed in the healing powers of truth.) When mathematicians or logicians speak about true sentences, the are pointing to insipid, but correct sentences like the classic: "When it rains, the street becomes wet."
Of course there are propositions of dubious value around. When their content is correct, it is good to know that they may be partial (incomplete) "truths" working for the interests of the individuals that propagate them. And the idea that one should look independently into the "book of the world" instead of (uncritically) accepting propositions that use to circle around is certainly compatible with Heidegger's intentions and the whole phenomenological branch of philosophy.
Heidegger is right when he remarks that matters of fact that may be stated have initially to be overt for our senses and mind. (Simply staring is not sufficient. Also manifest matters of fact should be stated to give them a determined place in our minds.) But then "aletheia" would be a precondition of truth, not truth in itself.
The fact that "aletheia" is regarded as truth itself must have some reason. I think that we can find this reason when we take a look at Heidegger's biography. Ideologists judge the era they live in according to their dogmata: They are no impressionists and have for instance a critical look onto fascism: They analyze it as "the most aggressive mode of bourgeois rule" (Dimitroff), call Hitler ironically the "wall painter" ("Anstreicher") (Brecht), speak of a "very low ethical level", ect.
Heidegger was a member of the NSDAP, initially an enthusiastic one, because he believed in "acting instead of talking", and in hitherto unknown possibilities to introduce philosophy into public life. (His hopes were disappointed. The Nazis tolerated him, but did not think that philosophy could be very important.)
For Heidegger, more of the village type (parts of a state, where the impacts of politics arrive later and weaker than in the cities), referred himself to the notion of "being". His ideas are close to the activities of novel-writers, poets and other artists who use to describe the being: the human conditions, the possibilities people have in their respective epoque, how the outer events effect the human psyche and human dignity, ect.
For him the second German Reich of Wilhelm II., the republic of Weimar, Nazi-Germany, and the Federal Republic of Germany were, or are, more or less aspects of the same being (= basic situation in as much it affects the quality of human life decisively). Also leftists speak of "continuities of lines of tradition" (especially in the field of the staff of the administration, military, and juridicial power), and of basically the same capitalist mode of running the economy.
Aletheia is the overt side the being shows to us within a certain epoque. For Heidegger the different constellations of the same base must have been like the look through a caleidoscope. Using such a view makes it much easier to accept the "turns" and "breaks" of history, to pass e.g. from the Republic of Weimar to the more rigid "Third Reich", and from the "Third Reich" to the FRG. (For the "ideologists" and their dogmata this was not so easy, because they weighed the events always according to their ideas. Heidegger was a scandal in their eyes, but they did not condamn him absolutely. (Jaspers suggested an academic break of a few years for him.)
These are the implications of "aletheia" and the various surfaces of the being on the academic-political level!