About Greek alētheia ‘truth’: Marcel Detienne challenges Martin Heidegger

Abstract

In the book Sein und Zeit (1927) and in other works by Martin Heidegger, the etymology of the Greek word alētheia ‘truth’ is explained as a negativizing of the element lēth-, attested as the verb lanthanein, which is used primarily in the sense of ‘escape the notice of’ in ancient Greek texts. Accordingly, Heidegger interpreted the basic meaning of alētheia as ‘unconcealedness’—to cite a commonly used English translation of his German term Unverborgenheit. I propose here to highlight a less-well-known interpretation of alētheia, which I think deserves its own place in the sun. This alternative is to be found in a book by Marcel Detienne, originally published in 1967; a second edition appeared in 1994, and an English translation by Janet Lloyd followed in 1996. In the first edition, Detienne was already fiercely critical of Heidegger’s interpretation, using philosophical, philological, and historical arguments in developing his own interpretation. In the second edition, Detienne added linguistic arguments in taking his interpretation even further. In adding those new arguments, Detienne cited, with approval, my own work on the etymology of alētheia. In this brief essay, I concentrate on the linguistic arguments.