Heidegger on The Nature of Truth

Abstract

Perhaps there are no more central themes in philosophy then those which involve the nature of truth. Yet surprisingly, the issue regarding the nature of truth itself, an issue which in its essential character impinges upon every other issue and problem has at least in regard to its substantive character achieved scant attention on the part of our major modern philosophic traditions. While the issue of truth has been the object of much focus in the analytic tradition, this focus has almost always been deflationary in approach. Following Tarski these redundancy or disquotational accounts embody a conviction that at bottom truth has no substantive content. The neglect to seriously reflect upon the substantive character of truth is even more surprising in light of the contemporary polarization of our philosophical world into two all but mutually exclusive modes of thinking and discourse. While again and again this polarization is lamented as destructive to the integrity of philosophical thought, it is not entirely clear what the ultimate roots of this dichotomy are or how it might be effectively transcended. While the ambiguity of this situation defies any simple solutions it might simultaneously provide inspiration for experimental thinking. In such a spirit a primary reflection upon the nature of truth in our human experience might effectively provide a passageway out of the current impasse in which philosophy finds itself. In a philosophical context, a context which is present albeit in different ways in both the analytic and the continental traditions, the issue of truth is unique in its power to wrest attention away from peripheral concerns toward the integrity of a vital center of meaning. Simply expressed, the issue of truth in human experience has universal significance for thought, even if it is not simply and only 'truth' which embodies this significance, but anything we