Unverborgenheit und Schein

Abstract

This book presents a phenomenological interpretation of Heidegger’s conception of truth in the context of “Being and Time”. Contrary to a common criticism, the author argues that Heidegger’s novel conception of truth as unconcealedness does not abandon the specific meaning of truth. Rather, the distinction between truth and untruth – as unconcealedness and appearance – remains intact. This is elaborated through phenomenological analyses of various forms of unconcealedness, concealment and appearance, as they are characteristic of the different modes of being – from predicative discovery, through the successful handling of things, to the confrontation with one’s own being in anxiety. The result is a genuinely pluralist and, at the same time, fallibilist conception of truth: it takes account of diversity and historical changeability without compromising the normativity of truth.