The Essence of Truth
On Plato's "Parable of the Cave" and the "Theaetetus"
Published on 1. May 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-8264-5922-0 (ISBN)
Description
One of Heidegger's most important works, this text gives a thorough explanation of what is arguably the most fundamental and abiding theme of his philosophy, namely the difference between truth as the "unhiddenness of beings" and truth as the "correctness of propositions". For Heidegger, it was by neglecting the former primordial concept of truth in favour of the latter derivative concept that Western philosophy, beginning with Plato himself, took off on its "metaphysical" course towards the bankruptcy of the present day. This book consists of a lecture course delivered by Heidegger at the University of Freiburg in 1931-32. The first part is a detailed analysis of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in "The Republic", while the second part gives an exegesis and interpretation of a central section of Plato's "Theaetetus". As always with Heidegger's writings on the Greeks, the point of his interpretative method is to bring to light the original meaning of philosophical concepts, especially to free up these concepts to their intrinsic power.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Greek-English glossary, English-German glossary
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
419 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8264-5922-0 (9780826459220)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is now regarded as one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers. The translator, Dr Ted Sadler, studied at the University of Sydney and has taught philosophy widely at Australian universities.
Content
Preliminary considerations. Part 1 The clue to the "essence" of "truth": the four stages of the occurrence of truth; the idea of the good and unhiddenness; the question concerning the essence of the untruth. Part 2 An interpretation of Plato's "Theaetetus" with respect to the question of the essence of untruth: preliminary considerations; beginning the discussion of Theaetetus' first answer; stepwise unfolding of perceiving in all its connections; towards a discussion of Theaetetus' second answer; the question concerning the possiblity of the "distorted vision". Appendix - supplementary materials from Heidegger's notes.