O N TRUTH AND LANGUAGE
Truth, writes Heidegger, “is the essence of the true.” 4 What is he telling
us with this seemingly redundant statement and how is he imploring us to
think? The way we begin is to follow Heidegger and begin with essence.
The truth of a being is found in that being’s essence, simply, in what it
is. But, like Heidegger, we pause, for here we have turned our attention
to the essence of beings, but not yet to the essence of truth itself, though
we are not so far off. The truth is that truth is , just as the essence of a
being is found in the being’s being-ness, in the is-ness of that very being.
But where is truth, where does it reside? Does it reside? Certainly truth is
there, it is here. In this way the nature of truth seems to escape our abil-
ity to name it and to bring truth into language, or rather, to move out
of the way so that truth might bring itself into language. This is because
truth cannot be possessed; it is not a thing that exists in itself that can be
captured or grasped. Rather, truth happens, it truths, and it unconceals
itself. Thus the primary characteristic of truth is that it reveals itself. The
question regarding truth we ought to ask is, how is truth in the sense of
how does truth reveal itself? The phrase used above is reinvoked; how does
truth go about the task of truthing?
The how of truth is characterized by its nature as that which is revealed
in what is, in beings, or in their being unconcealed. 5 That a being is there,
out in the open, so to speak, is for that being to be seen, to be visible, not
hidden. It stands, in Heidegger’s words, in a clearing or an open center. 6
This open center shows itself in the midst of beings so that there is a kind
of space in which these beings can present themselves as being there. Their
unconcealedness is realized, noticed, observed, by their relation to the
clearing that is only possible in their relation to each other.
However, that which has been unconcealed, the very opening in
which being presents itself, closes. The act of stepping into the clearing
unconceals and also conceals because in stepping into the clearing, one
is revealed, but simultaneously limits are enacted; the revelation is not a
totality. It is not only in the stepping out that unconcealment and con-
cealment occur, but even at the very opening, or creation, of the clearing
itself. The clearing itself is brought about by the dual process of openings
and closings. Beings withhold themselves in their presencing and enact a
refusal—limits. When being is named, only what is perceived is named;
beings do not reveal the entirety in the act of stepping up and out. This is,
in a sense, the acting out of truth. This is how truth itself behaves. If the
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