“The task of ontology is to explain Being itself and to make the Being of entities stand out in full relief.”

Martin Heidegger [1]


 

Aletheia

 

Pilate asked “what is aletheia”?[2]  Heidegger said that it was something we have forgotten[3] and aletheia is what Jesus claimed to be[4] . The Greeks thought of aletheia as “reality” and some say that aletheia is “truth”[5]. Heidegger said that aletheia makes truth possible[6] . He called it “unconcealment”[7] . The words “reality”, “truth” and “unconcealment” all speak of “aletheia”. Evidently, Heidegger “stubbornly” translated aletheia as “unconcealment” because the reality of unconcealment has been neglected[8]. Heidegger suggested that aletheia creates space for life and allows light onto that which we discover[9]. “We must think aletheia, unconcealment, as the opening which first grants Being and thinking and their presencing to and for each other”[10]. We express our thoughts whilst being in unconcealed space. It is within an unconcealed space that we judge the world – a world into which we are “thrown”[11]  through aletheia.

‘Before’ anything is judged to be of practical use it must first be appreciated aesthetically. We have an aesthetic attitude towards that which we judge[12]. An aesthetic judgement does not concern an ‘undiscovered’ future; an aesthetic judgement articulates whether or not the reality that we are thrown into satisfies our desire. So, it is as aesthetic judges that we will judge whether or not something has been and continues to be of practical use. Following in Heidegger’s footsteps, we can characterise aspects of reality as “unusable”, “missing”, “in the way” and “disturbing”[13]. The reality of any disappointment reveals that we do not reveal reality and yet it is revealed; its revelation is a reality and so its unconcealment can be called aletheia. Should aletheia not also be acknowledged when we are thrilled with what has been revealed? When we are satisfied, happy and ecstatic?

Perhaps it takes a disappointment to reveal that mere humans do not realise the revealed through ‘positive thinking’; our desires may visualise what they want but we don’t always get what we want. We are at the mercy of the real! It confronts us! Heidegger rightly says that we are “thrown”[14] into that which is revealed; ultimately, we are at the mercy of the reality that throws us into the reality that is unconcealed!

We are thrown into a world that confronts us with its objectivity. We respond by confronting the world with our opinions. We like, dislike, love, hate, worship and reject that which confronts us. In this way our personality emerges in judgement.

Judgement discloses the existence of a relationship with the world because judgement requires two things: a judge and that which is judged.

We, who are subject to the objective, are objectified in judgement. Subsequently, we can each say “I judge, therefore I am in the world”[15].

As judges we realise that the smashing together of the subjective with the objective disclose a relationship into which we are delivered; our relationship with that which we judge; our Titanic relationship with the objective world; a relationship permeated in confrontation. Does this confrontational collision constitute what Heidegger described as “thrownness”?[16] Such confrontation constitutes an unconcealed space in which life lives. Our unconcealed relationship with a confrontational reality is dependant upon being thrown together by unconcealment, Aletheia.

  1. [1] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 1962, reprint 2003, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, pp 49 ↩
  2. [2] From John 18:38 ↩
  3. [3] Heidegger, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE TASK OF THINKING, in Basic Writtings, Edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p.388 ↩
  4. [4] See John 14:6 in its original Greek ↩
  5. [5] See G.E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament , Fourth Printing 1979, p 264-267 ↩
  6. [6] See Heidegger, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE TASK OF THINKING, in Basic Writtings, Edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p 389 ↩
  7. [7] See Heidegger, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE TASK OF THINKING, in Basic Writtings, Edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p 387 onwards. ↩
  8. [8] See Heidegger, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE TASK OF THINKING, in Basic Writtings, Edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p 369 – 392 ↩
  9. [9] See Heidegger, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE TASK OF THINKING, in Basic Writtings, Edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p 383 – 392 ↩
  10. [10] See Heidegger, THE END OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE TASK OF THINKING, in Basic Writtings, Edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p 387 ↩
  11. [11] See Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 1962, reprint 2003, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA,  p 204 (H 161) ↩
  12. [12] See Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 1962, reprint 2003, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA,  p 98 (H 69) and Bullough, Edward, “‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle, (excerpts). British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 5 (1912), pp. 87-117 (this can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361_r9.html ) ↩
  13. [13] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 1962, reprint 2003, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, p 103 (H 73 – 74) ↩
  14. [14] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 1962, reprint 2003, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, p 321 (H 276) ↩
  15. [15] This conclusion was prompted by Heidegger’s observation that we care about our Being-in-the-world; a concept which he articulates in his Being and Time ↩
  16. [16] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 1962, reprint 2003, Blackwell Oxford UK & Cambridge USA ↩
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