Idle talk, untruth, and entities in Heidegger's Being and Time

Abstract

This paper advances a novel interpretation of Heidegger's conception of idle talk ( Gerede ) in Being and Time , foregrounding a largely neglected yet central feature and explicating its normative dimensions. I argue that idle talk can be understood only in light of its connection to untruth and coveredness ( Verdecktheit ), and that this connection reveals a normative constraint governing the ontological commitments that sustain our relations to entities. Against Wrathall's forceful reading that construes idle talk in terms of a lack of skilful practical conversance with the entities talked about, I argue that it must instead be traced to flaws in the underlying ontological commitments. Idle talk occurs when operative understandings of being are not grounded in the entities they concern, such that entities are rendered in inappropriate ontological terms – a phenomenon I term ontological disguise (drawing on Heidegger's notion of Verstellung ). This interpretation clarifies the connection between idle talk and untruth and explains why Heidegger treats them as pervasive both in everyday life and philosophy. The systematic upshot is that, for Heidegger, understandings of being ought to be answerable to entities and can fail to meet this demand, a conclusion that bears on debates concerning his alleged idealism.