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Galiet & Galiet
emerges from itself, as Heidegger posits, “on its own accord (e.g. the emergence of a rose), self- opening unfolding, issuing into appearance in such unfolding, and persisting and remaining in appearance, in sort, emerging-lingering, prevailing (das aufgehend-verweilende Walten)”27 thus being real in its becoming, its appearing, in its reality as a springing forth, as a source. It would be an error to reduce φυσις exclusively to the conception or vision of pre-Socratics28 or of Plato and deny, without examination, its relationship to a-letheia.
Aletheia or αληθεια in Greek stands for ‘truth, truthfulness, sincerity’ as opposed to a lie,29 ‘truth and reality’ as opposed to appearance, and adverbially it means in very truth, in truth and in reality.30 Alethes or αληθης means ‘unconcealed, true’ in opposition to pseudos, ‘truthful, sincere, frank; real, actual’ and of oracles and the like ‘true and coming true,’31 and adverbially ‘truly, really, actually, in reality’32 and ‘so’ in Plato, Euripides, etc., and ‘indeed?, really? in sooth?’ in others. Its verb, aletheuein or αληθευειν, “to speak the truth, to prove praises true, to come true (of predictions).”33 These words relate to lanthanein (λανθανειν) in reference to an older form lethein (ληθω), ‘to escape notice, be unseen, unnoticed, without being observed, unknown’34 and Lethe, ‘a forgetting, forgetfulness and a place of oblivion in the underworld.’35
27 Heidegger. An Introduction to Metaphysics. Trans. R. Manheim. New York: Doubleday, 1961. Originally published in 1953 on the basis of his 1935 lectures. 11 and Heidegger. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World-Finitude-Solitude. Trans. W. McNeill and N. Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. 38
There is an air of similarity to Hegel’s conception of history as an unfolding and overcoming its tensions until a synthesis of each of its tensions is reached only to unfold again. The telos of human history is the Absolute Idea. However, it requires minute compare/contrast study beyond the scope of this essay. Hegel. Phenomenology of Mind. Trans. by A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.
28 That is, simply in reference to arche when it excludes aletheia. The pre-Socratics also saw phusis not in relation to arche, but in relation to socio-political-religious ends, contrasting it to nomos. Some of these key arguments discussed whether things flourished by nature or convention in respect to language, to human nature and social contracts, to the making of laws, to master-slave morality, to subjectivity and objectivity, to virtue and vice and to the particular ethical argument as to whether is best to harm your enemy and help your friends (heroic ethos) versus the Socratic posture that is best to suffer wrongthandowrong. Thesecontrasts,unfortunately,donotformpartofthisessay.
29 That is, for example, “to tell the whole truth about a lad” (Odyssey, Herodotus, Thucydides). Liddell & Scott. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1889. 34
30 In Demosthenes, Aristotle, Xenophon. Liddell and Scott. Liddell & Scott. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1889. 34
31 Aeschylus, etc. Liddell & Scott. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1889. 34
32 Aeschylus, Thucydides, etc. Liddell & Scott. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1889. 34
33 Heidegger. Plato’s Sophist. Trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 21
34 In the sense of I am unseen by others while fighting (Iliad), lest he come on unseen by me (Sophocles), without accusative, lest he perish without himself knowing it, (Id), you are a slave without knowing it (Aristotle). In compound verbs it takes a causal sense, to make one forget a thing. In Passive sense, to let a thing escape one, to forget, to forget purposely, to pass over, or as either he chose to forget it or perceived it not. (Iliad). Liddell & Scott. An Intermediate Greek- English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1889. 465
35 Liddell & Scott. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1889.
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