Being and Truth

Martin Heidegger, Gregory Fried, Richard Polt

• Verlag: Indiana University Press
• Jahr: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780253004659
• Thema: Philosophy
• Thema: Philosophers

A "well-crafted and careful rendering of an important and demanding volume" covering the philosopher's views on language, life, and politics (Andrew Mitchell, Emory University). In these lectures, delivered in 1933-1934 while he was Rector of the University of Freiburg and an active supporter of the National Socialist regime, Martin Heidegger addresses the history of metaphysics and the notion of truth from Heraclitus to Hegel. First published in German in 2001, these two lecture courses offer a sustained encounter with Heidegger's thinking during a period when he attempted to give expression to his highest ambitions for a philosophy engaged with politics and the world. While the lectures are strongly nationalistic, they also attack theories of racial supremacy in an attempt to stake out a distinctively Heideggerian understanding of what it means to be a people. This careful translation offers valuable insight into Heidegger's views on language, truth, animality, and life, as well as his political thought and activity.

PART ONE

Truth and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic

Chapter One

The Four Stages of the Happening of Truth

§10. Interpretive procedure and the structure of the allegory of the cave

Our answer to the question of the essence of truth had to pass through a decision. We cannot, as it were, think up the essence of truth in an indifferent rumination. Instead, what is at issue is the confrontation in history with the tradition of two fundamental conceptions of the essence of truth, both of which emerged among the Greeks: truth as unconcealment or truth as correctness. The originary conception as unconcealment gave way.

Here we cannot decide without further ado whether it was the inner superiority of the latter conception (correctness) that gave it the upper hand over the originary concept, or whether it was a mere inner failure that led to the predominance of the conception of truth as correctness. We must begin at the point where the two conceptions are still engaged in struggle.

Plato’s philosophy is nothing but the struggle between these two conceptions of truth. The outcome of this struggle determined the spiritual history of the millennia to come. This struggle is found in Plato in every dialogue, but in its highest form it is found in the allegory of the cave.

The fact that we put the allegory of the cave into this context, that we see the struggle between the conceptions of truth in the story that the allegory tells, indicates a quite definite conception. The interpretation of the myth of the cave leads into the heart of Platonic philosophy.¹

The story of the cave in Plato’s Republic is found in book VII, 514a–517b. We cite the text of the Platonic dialogue by the edition of Henricus Stephanus, 3 vols. (Paris, 1578), whose page numbers, and usually also the five subsections a–e, are printed in the margin of modern editions.²

We divide the text into four sections—and this means that we divide the whole story into four stages.

I. Stage 514a–515c.
The situation of the human being in the subterranean cave.

II. Stage 515c–e.
The liberation of the human being within the cave.

III. Stage 515e–516c.
The authentic human liberation into the light.

IV. Stage 516c–517b.
The look back and the attempt to return to the Dasein of the cave.

We proceed in such a way that we will elucidate each stage on its own, while attending from the start to the fact that the individual stages on their own are not what is essential, but rather what lies between them: the transitions from one to the next. This means that what is decisive is the whole course of the happening; our own Dasein should participate in completing this course, and should thus undergo movement itself. When, for instance, the first stage has been elucidated, we may not set it aside as something over and done with; we must take it along with us into the transition and the subsequent transitions.

At first I will always supply the translation of the text of the whole section, and then the interpretation will follow. It would be more convenient to refer you to the text or to one of the usual translations. But this is ruled out by the very fact that every translation is an interpretation.

The μ

θος is presented in such a way that Socrates tells the story of the cave to Glaucon, with whom he is conversing.^3,4

A. The first stage (514a–515c)

§11. The situation of the human being in the subterranean cave

SOCRATES: Make an image for yourself of human beings in an underground, cave-like dwelling. Upwards, toward the daylight, it has an entrance that extends along the length of the whole cave. In this dwelling, human beings have been chained since childhood by the legs and neck. Hence, they remain in the same position and look only at what is in front of them {as we would say: what is present at hand before them}. {They can neither leave their place nor turn their heads.} They are unable to move their heads around because of the chains. But light {brightness} comes to them from behind, from a fire that burns far above. But between the fire and the prisoners {behind their backs} there runs a road along which, imagine, a little wall has been built, like the partitions that entertainers set up in front of an audience and over which they show their tricks.

GLAUCON: I see {I represent that to myself}.

SOCRATES: Now see, along this little wall, human beings carrying all sorts of implements that poke up over it: statues and other sculptures made of stone and wood, as well as all sorts of equipment designed by human beings. Some of the people carrying these things are talking, as is natural, and the others keep silent.

GLAUCON: You are introducing an odd image there, and odd prisoners.

SOCRATES: They are human beings like us. For is it your opinion that such creatures would see anything of themselves or others than the shadows that the firelight behind them casts upon the cave wall facing them?

GLAUCON: How else, if they are compelled lifelong to hold their heads immobile?

SOCRATES: But what about the equipment being carried by? Don’t they see the very same thing, namely, its shadows?

GLAUCON: What else?

SOCRATES: If they were in a position to discuss with one another what they have seen, don’t you believe that they would consider what they see to be actual beings?

GLAUCON: Necessarily!

SOCRATES: But what if the dungeon had a echo from the facing wall? Do you believe that whenever on...