The Plot and the Argument: Philosophy as a Narrative Affair (original) (raw)
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Journal of Applied Philosophy , 2024
What is the relationship between theory and practice? The interplay between theory and practice is essential for translating abstract concepts into tangible realities. This connection is integral to embodying truth in our lives, showing that understanding alone is insufficient; the application truly confirms its significance. Nonetheless, contemporary philosophical discourse often leans towards intricate conceptual frameworks and cognitive insights, sidelining the integration of theory with practical wisdom. Many philosophers seem content with constructing elaborate theories devoid of a more profound philosophy that might guide their own way of life. The book Practices of Truth in Philosophy: Historical and Comparative Perspectives serves as an asset for translating philosophical thought into living reality. The book explores the practical frameworks of William James, Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, and Friedrich Nietzsche, aiming to transform truth-telling into a meaningful endeavor. It also delves deeper into exploring traditional, geographical, and historical perspectives rooted in living reality. The consistent emphasis of this volume is on connecting rich philosophical insights into truth with practice. The editors are concerned with a recent trend in philosophy, noting that it has historically prioritized theoretical aspects over the practical application of philosophical thought regarding truth. However, unlike the present philosophies, the approaches developed by the contributors are not concerned with the question of theory, but rather, the question of practice (p. 1). In other words, individuals should not merely understand the philosophical concept but must actively integrate and adapt it into a distinct way of living (p. 42). The core goal of the book is to make meaningful ways to demonstrate a way of living through the philosophy of life. The book is divided into 15 chapters and has diversified approaches to engaging truthtelling with the way of life. The contributors are not limited to the praxis of the truth; instead, this book's essential concern is how one gets this practice of truth. Sandra Shapshay argues, 'The key for Schopenhauer in attaining truths through these aesthetic and moral avenues, and what fundamentally unites these two avenues, is the practice of stepping out of one's habitual egoism' (p. 138). In other words, to cultivate goodness and aesthetic contemplation, one needs to step out of self-centeredness, which harms the world. In this case, the embodied truth praxes attain the theory after having the practicality of truth. Pietro Gori's engagement with the practicality of truth, approaching the work of James, Foucault, and Nietzsche, declares that philosophical insights relate to us to make true and give meanings to them. As a result, these insights are not static but rather active for practical engagement (p. 176).
THE TRILOGY OF ALÉTHEIA - VOLUME 2, 2024
“Value of the Truth” is Volume II of the “Trilogy of Alétheia,” which offers tentative topological modeling on recasting the ancient triadic logic of a Synthesis Epistemology. It begins by clarifying epistemic studies' contemporaneous paradigmatic crisis and its challenge to understanding and knowledge. It finishes by sketching a philosophical response for its affording. Two mediate topics delineate this undertaking's structural consequence and foundations in the specific configuration of Science and Philosophy modes of production. Volume III is still under edition and will provide for configuring the two other structural divisions of de Lore, focusing on Religion and Art modes of understanding and knowledge production. “Stance Against Episteme,” Volume I of this Trilogy, is still open to discussion in the Academia’s link: https://www.academia.edu/s/ac15623a9f?source=link. A reference to Gaston Bachelar is worth mentioning: “We suffer from an inability to mobilize our thoughts. To have any guarantee of having the same opinion about a particular idea, we must at least have had different opinions about it. If two men want to understand each other truly, they must first contradict each other. Truth is the daughter of discussion and not the daughter of sympathy.” (Gaston Bachelard, Filosofia do Não. São Paulo, Abril Cultural, 1978, p. 81.) The Trilogy of Alétheia aims to open a chance to project such a discussion through a two-way road. From its ambiance in the world of life towards this Trilogy, the one gives passage to the militant dissatisfaction - of the 'political scientist' its author formally has been in the academic network - with epistemic relativism that paved the intellectual serendipity in postmodernity. From this Trilogy towards its expected ambiance impact in the academic community, the other carries the postural commitment to reject the temptation of responding to ideological relativism with regressive absolutism – even because they represent the two faces of the same coin. Extreme relativism embeds the self-justification of fierce absolutism as follows: if everything may be True and so accepted, any particular or sectarian Truth becomes unquestionable and enforceable. The Trilogy of Alétheia aims to be resilient to both: against relativism, it emulates the value of Truth; against absolutism, it postulates the significance of everything. There is a matter of limits in the mood of such an affrontement. It implies a paradoxical assumption: from one side, pretentiously, the case to affording this confrontation; from the other, humbly, the limited cognition to affording its wholeness. In both cases, however, its embodied rational faith and defensible aptness matter. This text is an invitation to debate, still embryonic in postmodern academia. There are two vectors of its emulation that the Alétheia Trilogy explicitly subscribes to and proactively assumes: the pretension of its confrontation, which implies the opening and deciphering of a Pandora's Box, and the humbleness of its postulation, which Socratically recognizes the limits of his own reason, and in the paths of Paul Ricoeur’s “Interpretation” suspicion of his own faith.
Truth deserves to be believed (An essay against philosophical pragmatism)
Philosophy 88: 344 (2013), 179-96
Abstract. Science seems generally to aim at truth. And governmental support of science is often premised on the instrumental value of truth in service of advancing our practical objectives, both as individuals and as communities, large and small. While there is some political expediency to this view, it is not correct. The value of truth is nowise that it helps us achieve our aims. In fact, just the contrary: truth deserves to be believed only on the condition that its claim upon us is orthogonal to any utility it might have in the service of (any and all) practical ends.
“On the Value of Truth,” Society of Christian Philosophers, Georgetown College, KY, April 2013.
The question of the value of truth has been central to philosophy at least since the time of Socrates and the sophists. It will be helpful to begin by recalling how this issue figures in two prominent philosophers of the nineteenth century. William James in "The Will to Believe" cites a conviction in the existence and value of truth as a prime example of a belief that is based on volition rather than evidence or argument. After noting several instances where, as he argues, our beliefs are adopted because of the prestige they possess within society, he continues:
Isis, 2011
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This review/essay consists of two related parts. The review is of the popular 260-page book with this title by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. As this struck me as being more poetic than philosophical, I preceded it with a metaphysical/philosophical essay on the same subject, mainly drawn from the chapter of the book "Great Ideas" (1992) by Mortimer Adler. This essay illustrates how confused we are about this central and important concept. Here, we see what a pathetic contribution has been made by professional philosophers over the last 2,500 years in trying to help people understand this concept that should be vital to every sentence they have ever spoken. This also provides insights into the 'Fake News' swamp we have finally fallen into. The book's subtitle is an accurate description of what a perplexed "Seeker of the Truth" will find in an inclusive and fair summary of mankind's attempts to prove that speaking to one another is a useful and valuable activity. This is a topic found at the heart of many of my own recent writings, which are cross-referenced here.
Rationality and Idealism: A Moderate Response to Robertson, Kerdeman, and Bredo
Educational Theory, 2009
Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.-Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8, circa third century ad In his recent riff on the pleasantly unruly quality of American democracy, the cultural and political critic Michael Weiss included this snippet from Gertrude Himmelfarb's commentary on perfectibility: Grand philosophies of the Germanic order-abstract, systematic, comprehensive, engaging all aspects of nature, aspiring to create a whole that would subsume all contingencies and rationally construct (or reconstruct) the world-such philosophies were not only irrelevant to the mundane affairs of social and political life but also fatally distracting and disruptive. Conversely, the modest philosophies favoured by the English.. . were attuned to a culture that was practical and prudent and thus conducive to a polity that was humane and responsible. 1 Weiss's concern is not the debate about the rationality of educational reform or research, but rather his dispute with contemporary theorists of ''American declinism.'' And yet his message is relevant to our purpose here: he wishes to remind us that the pursuit of completion in the social or economic order can be a messy, even bloody, business. On this theme Himmelfarb, considered among the great historians and philosophers of the twentieth century, is unequivocal: The perils of utopianism are by now all too familiar. It was in the name of the best-of so-called ''ideals''-that some of the worst tyrannies have been perpetrated and rationalised. Robespierre's Reign of Terror was instituted in the name of the ''Republic of Virtue,'' which was a conscious adaptation of Rousseau's ''reign of virtue.
Central European cultures, 2023
Humanities scholars often hesitate to declare something true, but truth is indispensable. This essay surveys possible accounts of truth in analytic philosophy, before looking at the functioning of truth in everyday life and the place of truth in the work of two leading theorists often thought to question or deny truth. Jacques Derrida critiques assumptions about truth but embraces a drive towards truth and Bruno Latour's work is devoted to showing how truth is produced through complex systems. Truth is not simple but functions as both foundation and a goal.
The Interpretation of Knowledge, a Valentinian text that dates from the late second to early fourth century, addresses a social conflict within a Christian community that has resulted in factionalism between “spiritual” and “ordinary” Christians. In this sustained paraenetic address, the author exhorts both factions to reconciliation. At the close of the tractate, the author shifts from the internal problem to themes of cosmic conflict and persecution, thereby tapping into martyrdom language. In 20.36–38 the author uses a rhetorical question and three consecutive sentences to emphasize his or her moral indignation at those in the community who are causing divisions. By building up to a rhetorical climax, the author discursively aligns these agitators with those cosmic forces that oppose the Christian’s soteriological status and the church’s harmony. Thus, the paraenesis charges the recipients either to accept the exhortation to unity or to be identified as persecutors rather than as “athletes of the Logos.”