The unconcealedness of the truth: a study in Heideggerian understanding of truth

Abstract

This thesis attempts to elaborate on different accounts of truth in Heidegger’s philosophy to investigate whether Heidegger’s understanding of Being as manifestness is metaphysically constructed. After this our investigation will continue with whether Heidegger’s understanding of Being in relation to his treatment of the notion of truth is open to hierarchies or not, keeping in mind Plato’s claim on “beingly beings” in Republic. To accomplish this I firstly expand on Heidegger’s notion of truth in his magnum opus Being and Time. Afterwards I try to elaborate on the later works of Heidegger to indicate the change in his thinking about the notion of truth and to unravel possible outcomes of Heideggerian reading of truth in its relation to ontology in the history of Western philosophy. According to the mainstream Heidegger scholarship, Heidegger was focused on the meaning of Being in his earlier period whereas he was engaged in the truth of Being in his later period. However Richard Capobianco claims that Heidegger always engaged in the truth of Being and in his later philosophy this motivation became clearer. Accordingly the manifestness of Being has a structural primordiality over our meaning-giving activities. In my view this is a very plausible argument. For beings to be subject of perception and to make sense to us, they have to be there, they have to be manifested. Something that is not ontologically manifested cannot have any ground to be and to be something. At the end of the thesis instead of reaching to conclusions I try to bring forth even more questions that will allow us to question Heidegger’s understanding of Being in relation to metaphysical hierarchies.