Factical Speaking

Abstract

This chapter provides a close analysis of the first section of Heidegger's lecture course Introduction to Phenomenological Research (G 17), from the winter semester 1923–24. It shows that logos as speaking will serve as the ground for Heidegger's analysis of language, both logos as showing and logos as concealing. Heidegger retrieves Aristotle's conception of logos as revelation. In that retrieval, he discerns the primacy of the logos apophantikos, which is the logos of science. The logos apophantikos conceals the revelatory character of logos, but it is only by going through the logos apophantikos that we can uncover that revelatory character. We find the source of human deception—and thus of concealment—in speaking. Lastly, it looks more closely at deception to see that there is, for Heidegger, a lie built into the structure of speaking itself. But this deception arises only through the disclosure of the world and its richness.