Idioms of Truth

"Life is cloudy, it continually throws itself in a fog." With these words Heidegger once described the why experience never let itself be rendered fully transparent to any reflective investigation. Understanding is carried out in a movement in which the concealment of the structures of experience emerges as the same time as those structures are exposed. Philosophy must therefore pay attention to other regions of reflection that are not governed by the conceptual language of philosophy itself. It is necessary to recognize and interpret the various "idioms" of truth. Only in this way can existence come to be understood as what it is. The essays in this volume draw upon and open up a wide spectrum such concerns and idioms. In the end, they reflect upon the connections between Heidegger and his student, Gadamer, as each treats the significance of mortality, language, art, technology, communication, and politics in contemporary life and in philosophy. The essential motivation of these reflections is to open up the idea of a hermeneutical ethic which is able to pay heed to the finitude of life.