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The Essence of Truth: On Plato's Cave Allegory and Theaetetus (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers)

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One of Heidegger's most important works, The Essence of Truth, bears witness to a shift in emphais, in which truth and by extension, being, no longer happens through the agency of Dasein, but in the 'open' in which Dasein is uncovered. By a slow and careful reading of Plato's allegory of the cave, Heidegger shows how truth ceased to be 'unhiddenness' and became mere 'correctness', beginning the degeneration of thought about being into metaphysics.

This is an excellent introduction to Heidegger's thoughts on Plato. Although much has been written about the way Heidegger sought to overcome the Western Metaphysical tradition, relatively little has been written about the way he sought to bring about a deeper, or in some cases, reinterpretation of Plato's Republic. Here, Heidegger goes into the very heart of Plato's Republic to discover an account of truth that is not grounded in some metaphysical subject that is opposed to some object, but one that is grounded in "unconcealment" itself. This work, when read together with Heidegger's The Origins of the Work of Art offers one a penetrating insight into the very grounds of Heidegger's disagreement with the received philosophical tradition.

Being as clarification (unhiddenness) v. correctness (propositional validity). 3. Beholding the Ideal contained in flux.

As far as throwing light upon "Being", Heidegger's 'clearing' consists only in the aperture of the cornea that is

formed around the iris: it does not go deeper into 'it'. Heidegger's idea of leaving the cave consists in facing

the light and seeing what is 'nakedly'. This might be adequate if what occurs in the eye is not mere sense, but

also the faculty of judgement; the case is that sense impressions are subject to judgement (interpretation, if

you like) prior to their becoming SUBJECT to our awareness. That is, 'direct consciousness' of objects is

mediated by the understanding, and it is a misnomer to speak of consciousness as being 'direct' in any SENSE

whatsoever. As for the Will, Being is only directly conceived through [carpe diem] it in the process of

becoming [panta rei] precisely WHEN one surrenders the status of compos mentis as a 'true' entity for that

which makes for a greater awareness through intuition (i.e. knowing, and not a greater 'proximity' to Being

which in any case would be only another state achieved and not a 'field of vision' gained). This expresses the

paradoxical nature of truth, of Dasein as Werdens; as neither Being nor Nothing. The concept of truth as

unhiddenness of Dasein remains problematic given its visual nature, which is in no way adequate a model of

the understanding, or even Will to remain tenable: unhiddenness is not disclosure, and if the error was

one of judgement in the first place it is not a question of sight which unveils, but insight that discloses the

'nature' of things-in-themselves (Beings, if you will) as they are, from which we can reason back and

distill what we receive first as sense datum, to the pure Idea which is beholden to us (it as necessary and dear

to us, as we to it).