In the contemporary analytic philosophy of literature and especially literary theory, the paradigmatic way of understanding the beliefs and attitudes expressed in works of literary narrative fiction is to attribute them to an implied author, an entity which the literary critic Wayne C. Booth introduced in his influential study The Rhetoric of Fiction. Roughly put, the implied author is an entity between the actual author and the narrator whose beliefs and attitudes cannot be appropriately ascribed to the actual author. Over (...) the decades, this “the author’s second self,” a construct the actual author is seen to create in her act of writing, has gained an established place in literary theory. In the philosophy of literature, in turn, the implied author has evolved into multiple entities; it has been represented and developed as, for instance, “the postulated author” (Alexander Nehamas), “the fictional author” (Gregory Currie) and “the model author” (Umberto Eco). -/- The aim of this paper is to suggest that although the implied author, and its philosophical counterparts, sheds light on certain types of narratives, it is insufficient in approaches which emphasize the truth-claims conveyed by a work. In what follows, I try to show that, first, from an ontological point of view, actual assertions in literary fiction, if any, have to be attributed to the actual author and, second, that the question of truth-claiming in and by literary fiction is an epistemological matter concerning the actual intentions of the author. -/- . (shrink)

The paper is a contribution to current debates about conspiracy theories within philosophy and cultural studies. Wittgenstein’s understanding of language is invoked to analyse the epistemological effects of designating particular questions and explanations as a ‘conspiracy theory’. It is demonstrated how such a designation relegates these questions and explanations beyond the realm of meaningful discourse. In addition, Agamben’s concept of sovereignty is applied to explore the political effects of using the concept of conspiracy theory. The exceptional epistemological status assigned to (...) alleged conspiracy theories within our prevalent paradigms of knowledge and truth is compared to the exceptional legal status assigned to individuals accused of terrorism under the War on Terror. The paper concludes by discussing the relation between conspiracy theory and ‘the paranoid style’ in contemporary politics. (shrink)

This article considers some political potentialities of the post-constructivist proposal for substituting truth with traceability. Traceability is a measure of truthfulness in which the rationality of a truth-claim is found in accounting for the work done to maintain links back to an internal referent through a chain of mediations. The substitution of traceability for truth is seen as necessary to move the entire political domain towards a greater responsiveness to the events of the natural-social world. In (...) particular, it seeks to disarm the strategy of ... (shrink)

In this outstanding defense of Christianity, the author compares and contrasts six methods of reasoning used by philosophers during the resurgence of evangelical beliefs in the latter half of the 20th century. He looks at the empirical, rational, presuppositional, mystical, existential and verificational methods that stimulate critical thought about God, as seen in the Jesus of history and in the teachings of Scripture. Originally published in 1976 by Moody Press.

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works (...) of Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

This paper presents Karl Jaspers understanding of truth as communication as a framework for reflecting on the nature of truth-claims in Christian theology. Jaspers argues that the fact that we communicate with each other in several different modes implies that the criteria of truth in our discourse must vary in these different modes. In developing this view he distinguishes between four modes of communication: the mode of presenting and defending vital personal interests, the mode of common understanding (...) of the observable world, the mode of developing and operating with ideas of unifying spiritual wholeness, and the mode of authentic personal identity. The formation of this framework draws heavily on Kant. His discussion of the spiritual ideas for example clearly links with Kant regulative ideas of reason. Yet where Kant seems to limit thwese ideas to three: the self, the world and God, Jaspers seems to offer a more open and indefinite view. This becomes important for making a comparison between his account of truth and an account which could accommodate claims of the Christian thelogians. (shrink)

Using focus groups, this small-scale, qualitative study investigated the way that students tend to think about religious truth-claims as compared to other types of truth-claim. All the student participants conceived of religious truth-claims as ‘opinions’, to be contrasted with the certain, indisputable ‘facts’ of science. For many students, it was the lack of empirical verification, as well as the existence of disagreement, which meant religious beliefs were relegated to this position. If these findings are generalisable, then (...) there are implications for the ongoing theoretical dispute over the extent to which truth should be a focus in religious education. The tendency for students to see religious claims as subjective lends support for a critical pedagogy that places evaluation of truth centre-stage. The findings also suggest a need for religious education and science teachers to include more reflection on the nature of the scientific method in their schemes of work in order to dispel the myths of unanimity and certainty in science. (shrink)

This paper discusses the different, often competing, even conflicting, truth-claims that are heard around the personal narratives of marginalized, stigmatized and culturally muted people?in this case people with intellectual disabilities. Since people with intellectual disabilities began speaking up in the 1980s, tensions have emerged as to whose voice is authentic, whose story can be believed. This matters because we see the consequences of failure to believe those stories in scandals of abuse in settings, such as Winterbourne View (England) in (...) 2011. The article looks to ethical theory to help understand what lies behind the failure to believe, and argues that researchers who seek to facilitate the articulation of the voices of the powerless, need to be aware of the ethical groundings of competing truth claims. My personal background for doing this is over 40 years of professional engagement in the field of special education and social work with people with learning disabilities. During most of these years, I have been actively engaged as a supporter and partner in the movements of self-advocacy and self-organization by people with intellectual disabilities. (shrink)

In liberal democracies it is now a commonplace that public debates in the institutionalized political sphere should involve only arguments and reasons that are in principle intelligible, accessible and acceptable to all citizens. Many political theorists take the view that religious arguments and reasons do not meet these requirements. My article interrogates this widely held position, considering each of the three requirements in turn. Motivating my discussion is the view that religious beliefs and practices should not be regarded as essentially (...) private matters, with discussion of their validity confined to some antecedently demarcated sphere. Rather, claims made for the validity of religious beliefs and practices should be thematized and evaluated in public processes of deliberation, opening them to possible challenges from other citizens, irrespective of whether these other citizens are religious believers. My article offers a freedom-based argument for this position. (shrink)

First collected in Italy in 1985, _Art's Claim to Truth_ is considered by many philosophers to be one of Gianni Vattimo's most important works. Newly revised for English readers, the book begins with a challenge to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, who viewed art as a metaphysical aspect of reality rather than a futuristic anticipation of it. Following Martin Heidegger's interpretation of the history of philosophy, Vattimo outlines the existential ontological conditions of aesthetics, paying particular attention to the works (...) of Kandinsky, which reaffirm the ontological implications of art. Vattimo then builds on Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of aesthetics and provides an alternative to a rationalistic-positivistic criticism of art. This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies. In the book's final section, Vattimo articulates the consequences of reclaiming the ontological status of aesthetics without its metaphysical implications, holding Aristotle's concept of beauty responsible for the dissolution of metaphysics itself. In its direct engagement with the works of Gadamer, Heidegger, and Luigi Pareyson, _Art's Claim to Truth_ offers a better understanding of the work of Vattimo and a deeper knowledge of ontology, hermeneutics, and the philosophical examination of truth. (shrink)

Selected papers of the conference held in April, 1970. British ed. published under title: Truth and dialogue, the relationship between world religions.

Introduction -- Direct realism. An introduction to direct realism : the views of D.M. Armstrong -- The representationalism of Dretske, Tye, and Lycan -- Searle's naturalism and the prospects for knowledge -- Philosophy as science : neuroscience, neurophilosophy, and naturalized epistemology. Cognitive science, philosophy, and our knowledge of reality, pt. 1. The views of David Papineau -- Cognitive science, philosophy, and our knowledge of reality, pt. 2. The views of Daniel Dennett -- Can the Churchlands' neurocomputational theory cognition ground a (...) viable epistemology? (by Errin Clark) -- Other alternatives, and naturalism's future. Other proposals : Pollock's internalism, Kim's functionalism (with Peggy Burke), and more externalist considerations -- The future directions of naturalism -- A positive case for our knowledge of reality -- Methodological naturalism and the scientific method, and other implications. (shrink)

In one of his many defenses of rhetoric, Aristotle states that "even if we were to have the most exact knowledge, it would not be very easy for us in speaking to use it to persuade [some audiences] … it is necessary for pisteis and speeches [as a whole] to be formed on the basis of common [beliefs]". Dana Cloud's Reality Bites advances a similar position, suggesting that the political left needs to reclaim rhetorical appeals as a form of argumentation (...) if it is to defeat the conservative forces that have taken control of the public sphere. Focusing on what she calls the "big five", Cloud argues that the American left is losing political ground to the right... (shrink)

The idea that science aspires to and routinely achieves truths about the world has been challenged in recent writings. Rather than beginning with a theory of scientific development, or of scientific explanation, we begin with a consideration of truth claims in ordinary discourse, particularly with Davidson's truth-functional semantics. Next we consider the way in which some framework features of ordinary language discourse are extended to and modified in scientific discourse. Two areas are treated in more detail: quantum theory, (...) and the peculiar problem of semantic entailment it involves; and quantum field theory. These supply a basis for criticizing some historicist and logicist treatments of the truth of scientific claims. (shrink)

By posing the question of what it is that marks the difference between something like terrorism and something like civil society, Brassington argues that commonsense moral arguments against terrorism or political violence imply that the modern democratic polis might also be morally unjustifiable. In exploring this problem, Brassington identifies a tension between the primary values of truth and normativity in the standard accounts of moral theory.

Philosophical texts regarded as «inspired» present special difficulties for textual editors and intellectual historians that can be mitigated by the study of archival documents. The works of the philosopher and yogī Aurobindo Ghose are considered important contributions to twentieth-century Indian literature and philosophy. Some of his followers regard them as inspired and therefore not subject to critical study. Aurobindo himself accepted the reality of inspiration but also thought that inspired texts, such as the Bhagavad Gītā, contain a temporal as well (...) as an eternal element. Aurobindo’s papers are preserved in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, which took shape during the 1970s. Editions of Aurobindo’s books published between his death in 1950 and 1977 were issued without consulting his manuscripts, early editions, etc., and therefore contain transmission errors, subjective emendations, etc. The editors of texts issued after 1977 followed the established methodology of textual criticism and so eliminated many obvious errors. Some of Aurobindo’s readers refused to accept the new editions, and agitated for the restoration of the earlier texts, going so far as to file legal cases against the editors and the administrators of his ashram or spiritual community. A nuanced approach to the editing of texts regarded by some as inspired must take the sentiments of readers into consideration while insisting on scholarly rigour. (shrink)

The Christian Tradition has Consistently claimed that, somehow, God may be identified with the truth as such. The claim has a fine biblical pedigree: John’s gospel asserts that Christ, and therefore God, is truth (John 14:6, 16:13). It is prominent in the early church fathers, especially Augustine; and the medievals, including Anselm, largely followed his lead. Nor is the claim confined to the pre-Reformation era. It is also found in the Reformed Church’s Westminster Confession, for example.1 (...) Despite its pedigree, the claim that God is truth strikes modern sensibilities as bizarre, a gross category mistake. For example, many contemporary philosophers treat truth as a property of statements or .. (shrink)

The increased visibility of feminism in mainstream culture has recently been noted, with the presence of both online and offline campaigns embedding feminist claims in a variety of everyday spaces. By granting recognition to women’s experiences, these campaigns continue the feminist practice of generating critical knowledge on the basis of gendered experience. In the post-truth era, however, the norms governing claims-making are being significantly reconstructed, with significant consequences for critiques of gender inequality. It is argued here that these norms (...) are linked directly to a wider context of anti-feminism in which dismissing women’s claims is consistent with the goal that opponents of gender equality have of seeking and consolidating epistemic power in the face of what is perceived as systemic male disadvantage and victimhood. Returning to earlier debates within feminism, it is argued that the kinds of post-truth rhetoric used to dismiss women’s experience provide a challenge that feminism must confront. This rhetoric is often grounded in the authenticity of individual experience; however, experience cannot provide unmediated access to truth and, therefore, cannot provide the foundation for feminist claims. On the other hand, experience cannot merely offer one of many contested versions of ‘reality’. The excesses of both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist epistemology are countered with the argument that cognition is a human practice mediated by theoretical propositions which illuminate the question of what can be known. This is the role played by feminist theory in defending the role of experience. (shrink)

Truth depends in some sense on reality. But it is a rather delicate matter to spell this intuition out in a plausible and precise way. According to the theory of truth-making this intuition implies that either every truth or at least every truth of a certain class of truths has a so-called truth-maker, an entity whose existence accounts for truth. This book aims to provide several ways of assessing the correctness of this controversial (...) class='Hi'>claim. This book presents a detailed introduction to the theory of truth-making, which outlines truth-maker relations, the ontological category of truth-making entities, and the scope of a truth-maker theory. The essays brought together here represent the most important articles on truth-making in the last three decades as well as new essays by leading researchers in the field of the theory of truth and of truth-making. (shrink)

On the basis of careful textual exegesis and philosophical analysis, and contrary to the received view, Mark R. Wheeler demonstrates that Aristotle presents and systematically explicates his definition of the essence of the truth in the Metaphysics. Aristotle states the nominal definitions of the terms "truth" and "falsehood" as part of his arguments in defense of the logical axioms. These nominal definitions express conceptions of truth and falsehood his philosophical opponents would have recognized and accepted in the (...) context of dialectical argument. On the basis of these nominal definitions, Aristotle develops his definitions of the essences of truth and falsehood--his "real" definitions of truth and falsehood. Aristotle's methodical exposition of his essential definitions of truth and falsehood in the Metaphysics serves as a well-developed example of how his philosophical inquiry starts with nominal definitions and ends with real definitions. Wheeler also argues for the novel claim that Aristotle defines the most fundamental kind of truth in terms of accurate measurement. Aristotle's metrical conception of truth serves as the theoretical basis for specifying the truth conditions of various assertions, for identifying the sorts of beings implicated in these truth conditions, and for explaining the nature of approximate truth and falsehood. Far from offering us a minimal account of truth, Wheeler shows how Aristotle offers us a sophisticated and metrical theory of truth. (shrink)

This is the heart of Vattimo's argument, and with it he demonstrates how hermeneutical philosophy reaffirms art's ontological status and makes clear the importance of hermeneutics for aesthetic studies.

What is truth? Michael Lynch defends a bold new answer to this question. Traditional theories of truth hold that truth has only a single uniform nature. All truths are true in the same way. More recent deflationary theories claim that truth has no nature at all; the concept of truth is of no real philosophical importance. In this concise and clearly written book, Lynch argues that we should reject both these extremes and hold that (...) truth is a functional property. To understand truth we must understand what it does, its function in our cognitive economy. Once we understand that, we'll see that this function can be performed in more than one way. And that in turn opens the door to an appealing pluralism: beliefs about the concrete physical world needn't be true in the same way as our thoughts about matters -- like morality -- where the human stain is deepest. (shrink)

Gettier presented the now famous Gettier problem as a challenge to epistemology. The methods Gettier used to construct his challenge, however, utilized certain principles of formal logic that are actually inappropriate for the natural language discourse of the Gettier cases. In that challenge to epistemology, Gettier also makes truth claims that would be considered controversial in analytic philosophy of language. The Gettier challenge has escaped scrutiny in these other relevant academic disciplines, however, because of its façade as an epistemological (...) analysis. This article examines Gettier's methods with the analytical tools of logic and analytic philosophy of language. (shrink)

The claim that liberal democratic normative commitments are compatible with nationalism is challenged by the widely acknowledged fact that national identities invariably depend on historical myths: the nationalist defence of such publicly shared myths is in tension with liberal democratic theory’s commitment to norms of publicity, public justification, and freedom of expression. Recent liberal nationalist efforts to meet this challenge by justifying national myths on liberal democratic grounds fail to distinguish adequately between different senses of myth. Once this is (...) done (drawing on Arthur Danto’s analytical philosophy of history), it becomes apparent that historical narratives cannot be justifiably shielded from criteria of truth and significance, and that genuinely historical myths are incompatible with liberal democratic political philosophy. (shrink)

There are several strategies for exposing the defects of established moral discourse, one of which is critical argumentation. However, under certain specific historical circumstances, the apparent self-evidence of established moral discourse has gained such dominance, such a capacity of resistance or incorporation, such an ability to conceal its basic vulnerability that its validity simply seems beyond contestation. Notwithstanding the moral subject’s basic discontent, he or she remains unable to challenge the dominant discourse effectively by means of critical argument. Or, to (...) borrow a phrase from Michel Foucault, individuals find themselves faced with a certain rationality, a moral regime that dominates moral discourse to such an extent that they cannot offer any resistance without raising the suspicion of being unreasonable. They (that is, we) find ourselves confronted with a discourse quite unable to recognize its own deficiencies. Although we are forced to accept its basic claims, our chronic discontent nevertheless persists. That is, although we are forced to participate in this discourse, we remain basically ambivalent, and our attitude towards established morality contains both a Yes and a No. Then, all of a sudden, the basic vulnerability of the dominant regime dawns on us or is revealed to us – and this is the experience of laughter. (shrink)

An innovative, ambitious, tradition-crossing study drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, and Habermas to propose a new and transformative concept of truth. The idea of truth is a guiding theme for German continental philosophers from Husserl through Habermas. In this book, Lambert Zuidervaart examines debates surrounding the idea of truth in twentieth-century German continental philosophy. He argues that the Heideggerian and critical theory traditions have much in common—despite the miscommunication, opposition, and even outright hostility (...) that have prevailed between them—including significant roots in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Zuidervaart sees the tensions between Heideggerian thought and critical theory as potentially generative sources for a new approach to the idea of truth. He argues further that the “critical retrieval” of insights from German continental philosophy can shed light on current debates in analytic truth theory. Zuidervaart structures his account around three issues: the distinction between propositional truth and truth that is more than propositional (which he calls existential truth); the relationship between propositional truth and the discursive justification of propositional truth claims, framed in analytic philosophy by debates between epistemic and nonepistemic conceptions of truth; and the relationship between propositional truth and the objectivity of knowledge, often presented in analytic philosophy as a conflict between realists and antirealists over the relation between “truth bearers” and “truth makers.” In an innovative and ambitious argument, drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, and Habermas, Zuidervaart proposes a new and transformative conception of truth. (shrink)

Argues that a pluralistic understanding of truth can foster productive conversations about common concerns involving religion, science, ethics, politics, economics, and ecology without falling into relativism. In this book, Donald A. Crosby defends the idea that all claims to truth are at best partial. Recognizing this, he argues, is a necessary safeguard against arrogance, close-mindedness, and potentially violent reactions to differences of outlook and practice. Crosby demonstrates how “partial truths” are inevitably at work in conversations and debates about (...) religion, science, morality, economics, ecology, and social and political progress. He then focuses on the concept in the discipline of philosophy, looking at a number of distinctions that are taken to be strictly binary—those between fact and value, continuity and novelty, rationalism and empiricism, mind and body, and good and evil—and demonstrates how in all of these cases, each on its own can offer only an incomplete picture. Partial Truths and Our Common Future invites ongoing dialogue with others for the sake of mutual enlargements of understanding rather than mere civility, and provides incentive for continuing open-minded and shared inquiries into the important issues of life. “This is a transdisciplinary philosophical work that moves with grace across traditions, time periods, and thinkers. It is a master class in the existential and public relevance of philosophy and a rare example of a book that is both timely and timeless.” — Michael S. Hogue, author of The Promise of Religious Naturalism. (shrink)