But Dasein is not the only foundation in Heidegger's philosophy.

In his lecture
"The Origin of the Work of Art" (1936), Heidegger invites us to "go to the actua
l work and ask the work what and how it is." (1) He calls on us to "ask the ques
tion of truth with a view to the work [of art]." (2) Human existence is no longe
r the center of the analysis, and no longer serves as the conduit of meaning. Th
e focus is shifted to art and its product, the work of art.
In de-centering the human subject and replacing it with the work of art, Heidegg
er does not, however, posit the aesthetic object as a unique privileged entity;
as a subjectum. In his essay "The Thing" (1950), Heidegger examines things as th
ey reveal themselves and provides a scheme, the 'fourfold' (Geviert), to account
for the way things constitute themselves through themselves, with no need for e
ither man or the work of art to make meaning possible.
The 'fourfold' is a conceptual scheme containing four elements: earth, sky, mort
als and gods. The gathering together of these four elements makes up the ontolog
ical meaning of each thing. The earth and sky, which represent nature, supply th
e matter for each thing. The mortals and gods, which represent history, provide
the meaningful context in which each thing becomes part of a web of relations.
The fourfold represents a departure from the model in which a single entity radi
ates meaning to its surroundings and thereby forms the center of meaning all by
itself. It places Heidegger beyond subjectivism.
2. The criticism of truth
The other way that Heidegger shakes the foundations of modern philosophy is by a
ttacking traditional epistemology: directly by tearing down the view of truth as
correspondence, and indirectly by dismantling the visual metaphor of truth.
To start with the issue of truth: The traditional view of truth is based on the
view of human beings as essentially cognitive creatures, who represent the world
of objects through ideas and concepts expressed in assertions. In this world vi
ew, truth denotes the correspondence between those mental or linguistic represen
tations, on the one hand, and objects, facts or events in the world, on the othe
r.
Heidegger argues against it is that it is impossible to validate such a correspo
ndence and, moreover, that no one would even try. Instead, he maintains, for the
re to be a correspondence between ideas or statements and objects, the objects m
ust first become manifest. The truth is their manifestation: their disclosure or
uncovering, aletheia rather than correspondence.
Heidegger anchors his view of truth as aletheia in ancient philosophy. He attrib
utes the concept to the pre-Socratic philosophers, mainly Heraclitus, Parmenides
and Anaximander, who, he maintains, considered the essence of truth to lie in t
he disclosure of entities.
Along with replacing the concept of truth as correspondence with the concept of
truth as aletheia, Heidegger creates a hierarchy of truth in which assertion - w
hich traditionally had been identified with truth - is relegated to the lowest r
ung, preceded by Being on the first rung and by man on the second. In Heidegger'
s view. for beings to be manifested, the existence of a common background agains
t which the manifestation occurs is required. The common background in which all
beings appear is Being. In the hierarchy of the various meanings of truth, the
privileged, primary level is reserved for Being.
The second level of the hierarchy is occupied by man, who has the ability to dis
cover Being, since he is capable of perceiving Its manifestations in the world.
Assertion occupies the lowest level because the fact that assertions have meanin

g and can be true or false is based on human existence, whose ontological struct
ure is the foundation of predicative speech.