Unhidden

Who then is this man of the cave allegory? Not man in general and as such, but that particular being which comports itself to beings as the unhidden, and thereby becomes unhidden to itself. But the unhiddenness of beings, in which this being stands and holds itself, happens in the projective perceiving of being, or in Platonic terms, in the ideas. This projective perceiving occurs as liberation of its essence to itself. Man is that being which understands being and exists on the basis of this understanding, i.e. among other things, comports itself to beings as the unhidden. ‘Exist’ [Existieren] and ‘being-there’ [Dasein] are not used here in a vague faded sense, to mean happening [Vorkommen] and being present, but in a quite definite and adequately grounded sense; ex-sistere, ex-sistens: to stand out into the unhiddenness of beings, to be given over [ausgesetzt] to beings in their totality, thus to the confrontation between itself and beings, not closed in upon itself like plants, nor restricted like animals in their environment, nor simply occurring like a stone. […] Only by entering into the dangerous region of philosophy is it possible for man to realize his nature as transcending himself into the unhiddenness of beings. Man apart from philosophy is something else.

Understanding the cave allegory means grasping the history of human essence, which means grasping oneself in one’s ownmost history. This demands, when we begin to philosophize at any rate, putting out of action diverse concepts and non-concepts of man, irrespective of their obviousness or currency. At the same time it means understanding what the clarification of the essence of ἀλήθεια implies for knowledge of human essence.

The proposition that man is the being who exists in the perceiving of being has its own truth, which is quite distinctive and different from such truths as 2 + 1 = 3, that the weather is good, or that the essence of a table consists in its being an object of use. The truth of the statement about the essence of man can never be scientifically proven. It cannot be established by reference to facts, nor can it be derived from principles in a formal-logical manner. This is not a deficiency, especially when one realizes that what is essential always remains unprovable, or more precisely, lies outside the sphere of provability and unprovability. What is provable (in the sense of formal-logical reckoning, detached from the fundamental decision and stance of human existence) is already dubious in respect of essentiality. Nor is the proposition about man’s essence a matter of ‘belief’, i.e. something to be accepted simply on authority. If one took it thus, one would not understand it at all. The truth of this statement (precisely because it says something philosophical) can only be philosophically (as I say) enkindled and appropriated, that is, only when the questioning that understands being in the questionability of beings in the whole takes its standpoint from a fundamental decision, from a fundamental stance towards being and towards its limit in nothingness.

• Heidegger, The Essence of Truth (tr. Sadler)