Narrative ethics holds that if you ask someone what goodness is, as a basis of action, most people will first appeal to various abstractions, each of which can be defined only by other abstractions that in turn require further definition. If you persist in asking what each of these abstractions actually means, eventually that person will have to tell you a story and expect you to recognize goodness in the story. Goodness and badness need stories to make them thinkable (...) and to translate them into individual and collective actions. Yet after more than two decades of considering the issue, I do not believe that a collection of stories can by itself guide actions in ways that are sufficient to respond to ethical troubles in institutional settings. The question will always remain open for me, but my present belief is that narrative bioethics is always hyphenated, in the sense that guidance from stories needs to be allied with other ethical guidance. Each side of the hyphen qualifies the other side. The hyphenation I will argue for in this essay is “narrative-deontology.”. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the issue of truth-telling in non-fictional narratives of (in)justice. Based on examples of rape narratives, domestic abuse narratives, human trafficking narratives and asylum seeker narratives, I examine the various difficulties in telling the truth in such stories, particularly those related to various culturally conditioned ideas of how the world works, which at the same time form the basis of, among other things, legal discourse and officials’ decision-making processes. I will also demonstrate that (...) such culturally conditioned ideas, which are the basis of official discourse, can be considered within the category of both the social imaginary of the just world in the Taylorian sense of the term, and the social master narrative, which in the case of stories of (in)justice is often based on the just world hypothesis. (shrink)

The authors present a case study involving truth telling responsibilities in the setting of nonepileptic seizures. Specifically, over the course of several suspected nonepileptic seizures, a patient’s seizures stopped after he received a saline flush meant to precede the administration of anti-seizure medication. The patient and his surrogate believed he had received the medication each time, and the team wondered whether they should disclose the truth. Some worried that disclosure would reinforce the suspected psychogenic behavior, exacerbating the (...) patient’s condition. In this way, the case study presents a twist on the traditional truth telling archetype. While most truth telling cases center on navigating cultural differences or worries about emotional harm, this case presented concerns about medical harm in the form of exacerbating the patient’s condition. The authors describe the complex patient-family-team dynamic that preceded this ethical dilemma, describe the case, analyze the ethical issue, and describe the outcome. (shrink)

Social persons routinely tell themselves and others richly elaborated autobiographical stories filled with details about deeds, plans, roles, motivations, values, and character. Saul, let us imagine, is someone who once sailed the world as a young adventurer, going from port to port and living a gypsy existence. In telling his new acquaintance, Jess, of his former exotic life, he shines a light on his present character and this may guide to some extent their interaction here and now. Perhaps Jess (...) also spent time at one of these port locations; perhaps their paths might even have crossed. They might be drawn into recounting some common events that indeed do establish a common link. Did they visit a certain famous landmark? Did they meet up at the same bars? And so on. When we open up to friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and close others through the stories we tell them, we do so by revealing bits of ourselves. (shrink)

Sweeping denials of the story's capacity to accurately reflect the past are ever catalyzing equally misleading global affirmations. The impositionalists, such as theorist Hayden White, view historical narratives as imposing a falsifying narrative structure on the past, and conclude that narratives cannot be true. Plot-reifiers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, David Carr, and Frederick Olafson, posit that the past is already narratively structured; historical plots are reified in order for there to be something in the world to which narrative (...) structures can correspond in being true. The antireferentialists such as JeanFrançois Lyotard and Roland Barthes deny that narrative histories even claim truth. Escaping this trilemma of theoretical interpretation involves accepting the idea that construction of a history does not entail its falsification. Historical narrative need to be allowed to function both figurally, in the sense of generating new discursive figures, and at the same time literally, in the sense of asking to be understood literally. Narratives need to be understood on their own terms, and not treated as an approximation to some foreign ideal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric and Power: An Inquiry into Foucault’s Critique of ConfessionDave TellOn October 10, 1979, Michel Foucault revised his thesis on confession. On that day, some three years after the publication of his magisterial treatment of confession in the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Foucault argued that the Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Epicureans had, before the advent of Christianity, their own practices of confession. Yet these practices, unlike their (...) Christian variants, were not complicit with practices of domination (OS 310, 312). In the context of Foucault’s thought theretofore, in which the confession consistently figured as an essential component in the exercise of modern power, this is a radical shift. In lectures given at both Berkeley and Dartmouth in the fall of 1980, Foucault made similar arguments. On these occasions he argued that Seneca’s De ira constituted a “stoic confession,” the object of which was to enable the subject to “live differently, better, more happily, than other people” (AB 210, 205). Judith Butler captures the gravity of the shift: “In the last years of his life, Foucault returned to the question of confession, reversing his earlier critique in the first volume of the History of Sexuality, where he indicts confession as a forcible extraction of sexual truth, a practice in the service of a regulatory power” (2005, 112).This reversal was short lived. Although Foucault would celebrate ancient Greek techniques of the self for the rest of his life, he would not [End Page 95] long refer to these techniques in terms of confession. Thus, in another reading of De ira, this one in March 1982, Foucault again noted that the Stoics have “confessional practices” that are “very close to what is found in Christianity” (Herm 482). This time, however, he insisted that the Stoic practices were fundamentally different: “However, all these elements seem to me to be profoundly different from what we should call ‘confession’ in the strict, or anyway, spiritual sense of the word” (Herm 365). In The Care of the Self, Foucault again conceded that De ira—what he now called “the most detailed description” of antique practices of the self—looked “at first glance” like a Christian confession, but he again maintained that it is something quite different: “The purpose of the examination is not therefore to discover one’s own guilt, down to its most trifling forms” (CS 61–62). Foucault concluded that the various “discourses of the self”—the confession and the Greek techniques of the self—could not be placed into a single category (see GE 250). Indeed, the “profound difference” (Herm 299) between these two discourses of the self was perhaps Foucault’s most repeated claim of the 1980s (see Herm 222, 237–44, 299, 308; GE 247–48; WS 237; AB 207–8; RFT 27; UP 89; CS 239; SS 5; FI 5, 12; FS 30, 35, 44, 87, 96, 97, 143–45, 147).It is worth asking why Foucault returned so consistently to the distinction between these two discursive forms. This question gains even more relevance for readers of this journal when we remember that, on at least two occasions, Foucault defined one of these forms, the ancient techniques of the self, in terms of its opposition to rhetoric: the techniques of the self, he claimed, are “nonrhetorical” (Herm 368; FS 20). Thus the question that drives this essay is not so much why Foucault attached such importance to the distinction but rather how rhetoric itself might differentiate the confession from the techniques of the self. Stated differently, Foucault’s work on the confession vis-à-vis the technologies of the self provides a valuable opportunity to study the role of rhetoric in Foucault’s thought—not because they are both rhetorical forms but, curiously, because Foucault insists that one is not.In order to foreground the work of rhetoric in Foucault’s thought, I situate his discourses of the self in the context of Nietzsche’s critique of metonymy. Although this may seem arbitrary, it gains initial plausibility from three facts. First, we know that Foucault understood rhetoric in terms of tropes (OT 84; Cooper 1988, 4). Second, we know too that Foucault had a deep... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric and Power: An Inquiry into Foucault’s Critique of ConfessionDave TellOn October 10, 1979, Michel Foucault revised his thesis on confession. On that day, some three years after the publication of his magisterial treatment of confession in the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Foucault argued that the Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Epicureans had, before the advent of Christianity, their own practices of confession. Yet these practices, unlike their (...) Christian variants, were not complicit with practices of domination (OS 310, 312). In the context of Foucault’s thought theretofore, in which the confession consistently figured as an essential component in the exercise of modern power, this is a radical shift. In lectures given at both Berkeley and Dartmouth in the fall of 1980, Foucault made similar arguments. On these occasions he argued that Seneca’s De ira constituted a “stoic confession,” the object of which was to enable the subject to “live differently, better, more happily, than other people” (AB 210, 205). Judith Butler captures the gravity of the shift: “In the last years of his life, Foucault returned to the question of confession, reversing his earlier critique in the first volume of the History of Sexuality, where he indicts confession as a forcible extraction of sexual truth, a practice in the service of a regulatory power” (2005, 112).This reversal was short lived. Although Foucault would celebrate ancient Greek techniques of the self for the rest of his life, he would not [End Page 95] long refer to these techniques in terms of confession. Thus, in another reading of De ira, this one in March 1982, Foucault again noted that the Stoics have “confessional practices” that are “very close to what is found in Christianity” (Herm 482). This time, however, he insisted that the Stoic practices were fundamentally different: “However, all these elements seem to me to be profoundly different from what we should call ‘confession’ in the strict, or anyway, spiritual sense of the word” (Herm 365). In The Care of the Self, Foucault again conceded that De ira—what he now called “the most detailed description” of antique practices of the self—looked “at first glance” like a Christian confession, but he again maintained that it is something quite different: “The purpose of the examination is not therefore to discover one’s own guilt, down to its most trifling forms” (CS 61–62). Foucault concluded that the various “discourses of the self”—the confession and the Greek techniques of the self—could not be placed into a single category (see GE 250). Indeed, the “profound difference” (Herm 299) between these two discourses of the self was perhaps Foucault’s most repeated claim of the 1980s (see Herm 222, 237–44, 299, 308; GE 247–48; WS 237; AB 207–8; RFT 27; UP 89; CS 239; SS 5; FI 5, 12; FS 30, 35, 44, 87, 96, 97, 143–45, 147).It is worth asking why Foucault returned so consistently to the distinction between these two discursive forms. This question gains even more relevance for readers of this journal when we remember that, on at least two occasions, Foucault defined one of these forms, the ancient techniques of the self, in terms of its opposition to rhetoric: the techniques of the self, he claimed, are “nonrhetorical” (Herm 368; FS 20). Thus the question that drives this essay is not so much why Foucault attached such importance to the distinction but rather how rhetoric itself might differentiate the confession from the techniques of the self. Stated differently, Foucault’s work on the confession vis-à-vis the technologies of the self provides a valuable opportunity to study the role of rhetoric in Foucault’s thought—not because they are both rhetorical forms but, curiously, because Foucault insists that one is not.In order to foreground the work of rhetoric in Foucault’s thought, I situate his discourses of the self in the context of Nietzsche’s critique of metonymy. Although this may seem arbitrary, it gains initial plausibility from three facts. First, we know that Foucault understood rhetoric in terms of tropes (OT 84; Cooper 1988, 4). Second, we know too that Foucault had a deep... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth about Narrative, Or:How Does Narrative Matter?Ruth Ronen and Efrat BibermanIn the summer of 1898, a sixteen-year-old girl, intelligent and good looking, entered Freud's clinic in Vienna. The girl, whom Freud would call Dora, suffered recurrent attacks of aphonia (inability to speak) and of coughing, attacks that came on and passed off spontaneously. Freud soon discovers that Dora's illness is connected to the love affair (...) her father is having with a Frau K., a family acquaintance, while the lover's husband is courting Dora herself. In analyzing the history of Dora, Freud unfolds the course of events that brought Dora to the clinic and produces her case by means of a fragmentary discourse consisting of Dora's speech, her dreams and thoughts as revealed to Freud while the analysis was going on. The psychoanalytic discourse yet also consists of Freud's own reports and interpretations of Dora's dreams, actions and speech and of his overall understanding of her case, an understanding that undergoes a few radical changes during the analysis. When Dora decides to leave the treatment three months later, which is much too soon in Freud's view, Freud interprets her act as an act of vengeance against himself, repeating her neurotic reactions to the romantic complexity she recounted through the person of Freud. However, when Freud learns later that Dora got married and has overcome her hysterical sicknesses, he re-reads her second dream as announcing that Dora was about to tear herself free from her father (from Mr. K. she tore herself free through an act of vengeance) and "had been reclaimed once more by the realities of life."1How has the narration of the case of Dora by herself and by Freud, changed her situation from a hysterical subject who suffers from severe symptoms, to a subject "able to be reclaimed by the realities of life"? [End Page 118] How has Dora's spoken words to Freud, and his way of responding and directing her speech, changed her situation so radically? What is the power of narrative in changing or affecting the object of narration? What constitutes the "true story" of a subject and how is it affected by the narrative modes by which the story is presented? Can narrative change the facts of the matter narrated? In this paper, as part of the attempt to define the constitutive power of narrative, a power that cannot yet reduce the constituted subject to an effect of discourse (Dora after psychoanalysis surely cannot be viewed as a construct of discourse, yet is so different from what she was prior to analysis), we will examine these questions as addressed in two, apparently diverse, contexts: that of analytic aesthetics and that of psychoanalytic thought. We will show that these two perspectives tackle similar problems regarding narrativity yet choose to solve them in ways that raise important questions regarding the effects of narrative.IIt is a widely spread opinion about narrative that it creates its own world in the act of telling, that "the structures of narrative impose some kind of barrier between language and fact; rather than being directly 'mirrored', the facts, as represented in narrative, are filtered through layers of linguistic artifice."2 The diagnosis that narrative somehow distorts or constructs the events it recounts, that narration changes the modality of what is narrated, is one important implication of the booming interest in narrative in the 1980s and 90s. To understand how such an implication was drawn, requires that the nature of the interest in narrative is more closely qualified as part of the growing attention paid to the pervasiveness of narrative in discourses traditionally considered to lie outside the domain of narrative rendering, and to the naturalness of narrative presentation in extra-literary contexts. These pervasiveness and naturalness of narrative were often interpreted as reflecting the literariness or fictionality of discourses that officially claim to be committed to reality and truth.Yet, how did it come about that the discovery of narrative elements in a wide variety of contexts was interpreted as entailing the fictionalizing of these discursive contexts? As narrative entails the imposition of structure on... (shrink)

In Time, Narrative, and History, David Carr argues against the narrativist claim that our lived experience does not possess the formal attributes of a story; this conclusion can be reinforced from a semiotic perspective. Our experience is mediated through temporal signs that are used again in the construction of stories. Since signs are social entities from the start, this approach avoids a problem of individualism specific to phenomenology, one which Carr takes care to resolve. A semiotic framework is also (...) explicit about a theme Carr handles implicitly: the status of representation. Representation is internal to signification, mediating our experience not just retrospectively but prospectively in the planning and execution of action. A model is presented in which the temporal organization of experience and action is formally coordinated with the temporal organization of narrative. The model is then applied to a historical event: John Batman's attempt in 1835 to purchase land from some Aboriginal tribes around what is now Melbourne. The meaning of this event is not located only in historical writing about it but in the semiotic constitution of the event itself. Changes of meaning emerge from relations between events as new events--in this case the Australian High Court's Mabo decision--align with old ones. Finally, a number of contrasts are indicated between this model and proposals made by Arthur C. Danto, Hayden White, F. R. Ankersmit, Fernand Braudel, and Paul Ricoeur. (shrink)

Responding to a recent surge of interest in feminist art, its futures, and its history, this article considers the nature and function of the dominant narratives that circulate and structure the field. Specifically, I explore the persistent story of inter-generational strife in which a first generation of artists and historians is understood to have been naïvely mired in an essentialism of which a second, more theoretically savvy generation has been subsequently cleansed. Although one would be hard pressed to identify contemporary (...) scholars who promote this sort of generationally bound progress narrative, the story persists. Its persistence, I argue, has less to do with its truth telling ability and more to do with its ability to perform the function of disidentification. (shrink)

"For description and defense of the narrative configurations of everyday life, and of the practical and social character of those narratives, there is no better treatment than Time, Narrative, and History.... a clear, judicious, and truthful account, provocative from beginning to end." —Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology "... a superior work of philosophy that tells a unique and insightful story about narrative." —Quarterly Journal of Speech.

The mind constructs narratives from what would otherwise be chaos. Narratives viewed minimally—at least two temporally ordered events—are revealed in the way people talk about space and time. Narratives replete with a voice, causality, and emotion are reflected in the stories people tell about their own lives, stories that, as acknowledged by their tellers, distort the details around 60% of the time, but, according to their tellers, distort the 'truth' far less often.

Time Tells is a grand study of time, technology, performance, the attention economy, and comedy. Using the cinematic time-jump, "a numerical shorthand for a fated intermission," to weave a narrative of chronopolitics, memoir, and cultural study, Masha Tupitsyn constructs a unique literary and visual phenomenology on the loss of time, presence, and attention in the digital age. Structured into two interlocked inquiries--Time and Acting--Time Tells focuses on the internet to talk about the ethics of presence and attention, comedy to (...) talk about timing and the language of critique, and lying masculinity, the double, and acting to talk about performance and the reign of falsehood. Both volumes intersect to examine our inability to experience coherence and integration in the post-truth era. In the first volume, Time, Tupitsyn covers wide-ranging cultural touchstones such as the '90s TV show Felicity, Hitchcock's Vertigo, Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name, Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, Pretty Woman, Wong Kar-wai's 2046, David Fincher's Zodiac, Jean-Luc Godard, the Beastie Boys, Wim Wenders, the art of style, memory and music in the post-internet age, and the lost ontology of cinema. Using what Tupitsyn terms "screen-shot criticism," Time Tells makes innovative critical thinking accessible to anyone interested in American culture today. (shrink)

The problem of truth in fiction concerns how to tell whether a given proposition is true in a given fiction. Thus far, the nearly universal consensus has been that some propositions are ‘implicitly true’ in some fictions: such propositions are not expressed by any explicit statements in the relevant work, but are nevertheless held to be true in those works on the basis of some other set of criteria. I call this family of views ‘implicitism’. I argue that implicitism (...) faces serious problems, whereas the opposite view is much more plausible than has previously been thought. After mounting a limited defence of explicitism, I explore a difficult problem for the view and discuss some possible responses. (shrink)

This essay argues that secrets and lies are not forms of withholding information but forms by which information is valorized. Lies are constructed: what is to be lied about, what a lie is to consist of, how it is to be told, and whom it is to be told to, all reveal a social imaginary about who thinks what and what constitutes credibility. Secrets are negotiated: continual decisions about whom to tell, how much to tell, and whom not to tell (...) describe social worlds, and the shape and weight of interactions therein. All of this makes lies and secrets extraordinarily rich historical sources. We might not see the truth distorted by a lie or the truth hidden by a secret, but we see the ideas and imaginings by which people disclose what should not be made public, and how they should carry out concealing one narrative with another. Such insights involve a step back from the project of social history, in which an inclusive social narrative is based on experience and individuals' ability to report it with some reliability, and suggests that historians need to look at social imaginings as ways to understand the ideas and concerns about which people lie and with which people construct new narratives that are not true. The study of secrets, however, links the study of social imaginings with the project of social history, as the valorization of information that results in the continual negotiation and renegotiation of secrets shows individuals and publics imagining the experiences labeled as secret because of the imagined power of a specific version of events. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth Will Set You Free, or How a Troubled Philosophical Theory May Help to Understand How People Talk About Their AddictionPatricia A. Ross (bio)Keywordsveridicality of narrative, contingency of theories, belief-behavior, causal connectionConsider the following proposition: If one were to recognize the unsatisfactory implications of maintaining a certain theoretical position, one would thereby be motivated to accept a more adequate theory, which would alter one's beliefs and, (...) in turn, alter the behaviors that are based upon those beliefs. Faith in this proposition is what motivates many of us to teach. But, alas...Allison Mitchell's argument for rethinking addiction intervention—in particular, rethinking twelve-step programs—is premised on this proposition. According to her argument, addicts function with an impoverished sense of self that is reflective of a grossly simplified form of philosophical materialism. By recognizing the limitations of this philosophically unconvincing view, and by, in effect, accepting a better, more complete materialism, addicts can come to modify their self-conception. This modification is instrumental to recovery.A careful consideration of the chain of events being proposed, and the problems with it, is helpful for understanding the limitations of her argument. There are four points that I consider in turn: (1) considering narratives can tell us something about the self-conception of addicts, (2) philosophical materialism can help us to understand and explain something about an addict's self-conception and how it is inadequate, (3) this sense of self is distinct from nonusers and the way in which it is distinct helps to understand the problem of addiction, and (4) a change in self-conception with respect to materialism helps recovery and, thus, our best intervention is one based on having addicts accept a full materialist theory of the self and not a pretheoretic one. [End Page 227]With respect to the first point, it should be noted that Mitchell's overall argument does not depend on whether or not it is true that narratives of addiction tell us something veridical about the self-conception of addicts. Such narratives may simply provide us with a potential theory—a possible worlds scenario—of how addicts conceive of themselves. Mitchell points this out herself. The narratives and the interpretation that she provides of these narrative, "are meant only to highlight a certain pattern of self-expression and conception that may in fact be common in persons who use mind-altering substances; the readings do not establish any empirical matters of fact or philosophical truths, nor do they prove any conclusions about how such persons (must) express themselves or conceive their nature" (Mitchell 2006, 214).Thus, what the argument is actually concerned with are the theoretical claims about the self-conception of addicts that are garnered from these narratives. Nevertheless, because the narratives provide the starting point for Mitchell's argument, it is worth thinking carefully about the epistemic status of this body of literature. In particular, could a consideration of such literature lead us astray in our endeavors to understand how addicts might misconceive of themselves and, if so, in what way? What sort of epistemic status does this information hold?Mitchell is motivated by Wittgensteinian analyses of the relationship between thought and language. The particular idea that she employs from Wittgenstein is that every act of self-expression, whether it is verbal or written narrative, reveals something about the conceptual framework with which the author is working. Thus, one can learn about the author of a narrative—one can acquire a sense of how that individual conceives of him- or herself—by looking at the language that is employed to talk about and describe him- or herself.Mitchell enumerates some problems with this approach. She mentions that the author may fail to make his or her intended sense clear to readers; that the reader's narrative expectations determine the interpretation given to the narrative; that literary narrative may be less direct, less ordinary than everyday uses of language; and that interpreting such narrative via philosophical framework may ascribe to people positions that are more precise and sophisticated than they actually intend (p. 213).Aside from these quite serious problems, it is necessary to recognize... (shrink)

Why do we tell our life stories? What is the point of studying narratives? What is the truth of narratives? How are narratives collected and studied by researchers? In this book the voices of teachers, education researchers, student teachers and philosophers join to form a polyphonic voice that attempts to answer these questions. They shed light on the obscure world of narrative research. This book contains both theoretical articles and empirical examples of narrative research. The theoretical articles (...) introduce and develop the basic concepts of narrative research and focus attention on its philosophical foundations. The empirical articles apply the narrative approach in a multi-dimensional way and provide a clear illustration of narrative research in action. The narrative data consists of teachers' stories about teacher education and school practice. (shrink)

Journalists’ and publics’ relationship with truth-telling is so messy because the term “truth” holds multitudes of competing senses that are rarely acknowledged in journalism discourse. People approach contested subjects from many, sometimes incommensurate, senses of truth. When journalists fail to identify the competing senses embedded in varying truth claims, they reproduce confusion as to the validity and verifiability of such claims and contribute to a rolling epistemic crisis in the public sphere. This essay explores six (...) senses of truth – logical, empirical, affective, ideological, authoritarian, and narrative – and discusses their interaction and problematic conflation. (shrink)

Learning the truth: memorizing the Koran in an Egyptian kuttâb -- The context of truth practices: legislating the sharîa at the shopfloor level -- Telling the truth: the judge and the law in family matters -- The truth about oneself: three Arab channels and their self-presentation -- Speaking the truth: advocacy video clips against terror -- Narratives of truth: documenting the mind in a psychiatric hospital -- Conclusion: Truth: a matter of language (...) game and practical achievement. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between truth commissions and gendered citizenship through a case study of Timor-Leste. It examines how, 10 years after the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation has completed its work, women’s citizenship remains constrained by, and negotiated within, deeply gendered narratives of nation-building that are informed by historical experiences of the resistance struggle. The power of these narratives—which foreground heroism rather than victimisation—underscores the need to situate truth commissions as part of an ongoing (...) politics of memory. Despite the power of political elites to shape this politics, the continued marginalisation of sections of society within official narratives is also providing an impetus for alternative truth-telling efforts that seek to broaden public perspectives on the past. By promoting new narratives of women’s experiences of the conflict, these projects might be understood as attempts to negotiate and transform gendered conceptions of citizenship in the present and for the future. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between narrative and argument in the context of ‘telling our stories’, a common aspect of processes of political reconciliation. Truth commissions and informal workshops often emphasize the telling of stories as a means of providing a sense of the experiences of persons affected by political conflict. Such stories, or narratives, may provide a powerful tool in reconciliation processes, given that they provide a basis for acknowledgement, understanding and empathy. However the power (...) of narrative in such contexts does not eliminate the need for the exploration and evaluation of arguments for contested claims, and there is likely to be a tension between empathetic and critical elements in this regard. (shrink)

The orthodox view in analytical film theory is that the difference between fiction and nonfiction is anchored in communicative practice. Whereas the creator of nonfiction can be seen as asserting something as true, the creator of fiction merely asks of its spectators that they imagine the work’s content. This could be labelled an intention-response theory of the difference between fiction and nonfiction. While watching Supersize Me I am as a spectator very much aware of director Morgan Spurlock making an argument (...) about the state of affairs in the real world, and I assess the truth-value of this argument. While watching Avatar I imagine that there is a population of humanoids, the Na’vi, on the planet Pandora, fighting for survival: I assess what is fictional (true in the fiction). -/- However, when it comes to truth claims the difference between the many varieties of fiction and nonfiction is not as straightforward as this. For example, one may argue that the spectator can and commonly does perceive even a prototypical fiction film such as Avatar as laying claims to truth in the sense that she may read the film allegorically, and search for the filmmaker’s agenda. Is not Avatar a critique of Western imperialism, and our non-environmental lifestyle, for example? It is not fully accurate to claim that fiction film does not make truth claims – there are several ways in which fiction films are taken as asserting something that the spectator is asked to believe. -/- Among the many difficult issues this counterargument raises, I will concentrate on only one here, namely on the case of social realism in fiction. Social realism arguably asserts that something is true in our actual world and asks its spectators to believe this – although works of social realism are also classified as fiction. The solution is not to dismiss the basic theory, but to make finer distinctions. I argue that one difference between prototypical nonfiction and social realist fiction is that nonfiction asserts that its contents (characters and events) are true as tokens, e.g., this person experienced this. As fiction, a work of social realism calls for imagining. However, such a work also asserts that its contents are true as types, e.g., these types of persons experience these types of events. -/- I argue that this can explain what the difference is between the truth claims made in the nonfictional The Corner and The Wire as social realist fiction, respectively. Creator David Simon emphasizes that The Wire’s portrayal of Baltimore city life is true, and is to be taken as making assertions about American inner city decay. The background for the show is found in Simons and co-author Ed Burns’s nonfiction book The Corner, written after extensive ethnographic observation of a group of drug dealers in Baltimore. Their intention to assert something as true is reflected in the academic reception of the series, in which it is celebrated for its authenticity and realism. Studying the style, narration and content of The Wire carefully further illustrates how these truth-telling intentions are communicated to the spectator. Its documentary-like style mimics observational nonfiction film, and its cyclical narrative structure, focused on an ensemble cast of characters typically marginalized in mainstream popular culture by virtue of status and ethnicity, is typical of works of social realism. The spectator picks up on these clues and expects a certain accuracy and authenticity in the type representations in The Wire, although she is aware that the depictions of these token characters and these token events are not true, but only to be imagined. -/- In conclusion, the theory presented in this paper may not be able to neatly categorize any given film as either fiction or nonfiction, as some nonfiction films make type claims and some fictions make token claims. I do not claim that the difference between type and token claims is sufficient for categorizing any given work as either fiction or nonfiction. More work is needed in order to categorize and describe the various types of fiction and nonfiction, paying special attention to the particular blend of imagining and belief prescribed by each, as evident in what the creators say about their intentions, textual features of the work itself, and critical reception. However, difficult borderline cases such as social realism in fiction do not collapse the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, as demarcated by the intention-response theory. Rather, such difficult cases should compel us to investigate more closely the communicative intentions and conventions at work. In the case of social realism, it is still correct to say that the spectator merely imagines that these fictional characters experience various events; however, she also perceives a double invitation to believe that these events and experiences are typical, and as such representative, of a larger group about which the work intends to assert something as true. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Lifeworld: The Construction of Collective IdentityAlan G. GrossAt the beginning of King Lear, at the point of ceding his throne to his three daughters, Lear asks each for a public acknowledgment of her love. Goneril and Regan flatter their father with effusive declarations, but Lear’s youngest, and his favorite, Cordelia, refuses to do so:I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more or (...) less...................... Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.(1936, 1.1.94–107) [End Page 118]Furious, Lear disinherits his daughter.Cordelia’s speech is remarkable only in its articulation of what Lear should have known; its dramatic impact is a consequence of Lear’s reaction to his daughter’s argument for divided loyalty that is based on a string of commonplaces that are part of the lifeworld that Lear and his daughter—and every other person in the play—inhabit. Any part of this lifeworld may be thematized, of course; it may be brought out into the open as a topic of discussion. That is what Cordelia does; under duress, she shifts from what Jürgen Habermas calls communicative action to a level he calls discourse, a level that reveals the relationship between the personal and the social as well as their underlying cultural presuppositions. Because Lear refuses to grasp the obvious, the narrative progress of the play is temporarily interrupted and permanently veers off course. Although on occasion we can thematize aspects of our lifeworld, the lifeworld as a whole cannot be subject to scrutiny; it is the totality of certainties, skills, practices, and interpretative frames that we take for granted as we each find our way in the everyday worlds that form the changing horizons of our experience. I take it for granted that too many cooks spoil the broth; telephoning is a skill I do not puzzle over; waiting patiently in line is a social behavior I practice without thinking; with no special effort, I interpret the intimacy of a couple’s relationship by the way they publicly behave toward each other.The lifeworld, a concept initiated by Edmund Husserl and elaborated by Alfred Schütz, Martin Heidegger, and Jürgen Habermas, has been largely neglected by rhetorical theorists and critics. It is the purpose of this paper to show that remedying this neglect opens up fruitful avenues of critical practice and theory. I proceed, first, by defining the lifeworld. Next, I shift perspectives: I analyze how collectivities make sense of their lives by telling stories about themselves grounded in their lifeworld values. It is in the lifeworld’s role in storytelling that, I claim, Aristotle’s Rhetoric becomes an important part of the picture. This is because the Rhetoric is, at bottom, a theory of the way lifeworld values enter into the public sphere. This characterization of the Rhetoric permits us to reconcile two important instantiations of the lifeworld, Habermas’s and Aristotle’s, a reconciliation in which communicative action becomes a special case of rhetorical interaction. Finally, from the perspective of the lifeworld, I reflect on the significance of an exemplary case of the construction of collective identity, the Selma march. [End Page 119]Defining the LifeworldEdmund Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences contains the first explicit philosophical analysis of the lifeworld as “the world that is constantly pregiven, valid constantly and in advance as existing.... Every end presupposes it; even the universal end of knowing it in scientific truth presupposes it, and in advance” (1970, 382). Because the lifeworld is presupposed in everyday communication, it can be entered only by disciplined reflection: “Contemplation is privileged to the extent that it reveals the structures of the world and has them as theme” (1973, 65). Although the lifeworld... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Lifeworld: The Construction of Collective IdentityAlan G. GrossAt the beginning of King Lear, at the point of ceding his throne to his three daughters, Lear asks each for a public acknowledgment of her love. Goneril and Regan flatter their father with effusive declarations, but Lear’s youngest, and his favorite, Cordelia, refuses to do so:I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more or (...) less...................... Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.(1936, 1.1.94–107) [End Page 118]Furious, Lear disinherits his daughter.Cordelia’s speech is remarkable only in its articulation of what Lear should have known; its dramatic impact is a consequence of Lear’s reaction to his daughter’s argument for divided loyalty that is based on a string of commonplaces that are part of the lifeworld that Lear and his daughter—and every other person in the play—inhabit. Any part of this lifeworld may be thematized, of course; it may be brought out into the open as a topic of discussion. That is what Cordelia does; under duress, she shifts from what Jürgen Habermas calls communicative action to a level he calls discourse, a level that reveals the relationship between the personal and the social as well as their underlying cultural presuppositions. Because Lear refuses to grasp the obvious, the narrative progress of the play is temporarily interrupted and permanently veers off course. Although on occasion we can thematize aspects of our lifeworld, the lifeworld as a whole cannot be subject to scrutiny; it is the totality of certainties, skills, practices, and interpretative frames that we take for granted as we each find our way in the everyday worlds that form the changing horizons of our experience. I take it for granted that too many cooks spoil the broth; telephoning is a skill I do not puzzle over; waiting patiently in line is a social behavior I practice without thinking; with no special effort, I interpret the intimacy of a couple’s relationship by the way they publicly behave toward each other.The lifeworld, a concept initiated by Edmund Husserl and elaborated by Alfred Schütz, Martin Heidegger, and Jürgen Habermas, has been largely neglected by rhetorical theorists and critics. It is the purpose of this paper to show that remedying this neglect opens up fruitful avenues of critical practice and theory. I proceed, first, by defining the lifeworld. Next, I shift perspectives: I analyze how collectivities make sense of their lives by telling stories about themselves grounded in their lifeworld values. It is in the lifeworld’s role in storytelling that, I claim, Aristotle’s Rhetoric becomes an important part of the picture. This is because the Rhetoric is, at bottom, a theory of the way lifeworld values enter into the public sphere. This characterization of the Rhetoric permits us to reconcile two important instantiations of the lifeworld, Habermas’s and Aristotle’s, a reconciliation in which communicative action becomes a special case of rhetorical interaction. Finally, from the perspective of the lifeworld, I reflect on the significance of an exemplary case of the construction of collective identity, the Selma march. [End Page 119]Defining the LifeworldEdmund Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences contains the first explicit philosophical analysis of the lifeworld as “the world that is constantly pregiven, valid constantly and in advance as existing.... Every end presupposes it; even the universal end of knowing it in scientific truth presupposes it, and in advance” (1970, 382). Because the lifeworld is presupposed in everyday communication, it can be entered only by disciplined reflection: “Contemplation is privileged to the extent that it reveals the structures of the world and has them as theme” (1973, 65). Although the lifeworld... (shrink)

Memory modification technologies (MMTs)—interventions within the memory affecting its functions and contents in specific ways—raise great therapeutic hopes but also great fears. Ethicists have expressed concerns that developing and using MMTs may endanger the very fabric of who we are—our personal identity. This threat has been mainly considered in relation to two interrelated concerns: truthfulness and narrative self‐constitution. In this article, we propose that although this perspective brings up important matters concerning the potential aftermaths of MMT utilization, it fails (...) to tell the whole story. We suggest that capturing more tangible potential consequences of MMT use, namely, its psychological ramifications is crucial both in ethical considerations and in making decisions regarding the permissibility of such interventions. To this end, we first examine what current MMTs are capable of and what are the prospects of emerging MMTs. Subsequently, we outline the relationship between memory and personal identity; specifically, we indicate that concepts of self‐defining memories and narrative identity are crucial to considering how MMTs may influence one's psychological functioning. On this basis, we analyze potential consequences of narrative disruption that may be the result of the use of MMTs; more precisely, we consider its potential effects on mental health, well‐being, and personal agency, and outline the ethical dilemmas that decision‐makers face in this context. We conclude by considering the broader cultural context that may have influence on policymaking regarding permissibility of memory modification interventions. (shrink)

Recent literary methods have opened new possibilities in reading and understanding the logic of narratives. The Greimassian approach offers such a possibility. Though Greimas’ approach is by now accepted as part of the canon of narratology, some of its components have not yet received due attention. This is the case with his ‘veridictory square’, a diagram that applies especially to texts where oppositions such as truth-falsehood, hero-villain and subject-anti-subject are prominent themes. This article aims to demonstrate that these kinds (...) of narratives, such as Susanna, do not concern themselves with objective truth but persuasion about truth, that is, veridiction. Truth telling in those stories corresponds to manipulation, exercising a particular cognitive doing or causing to appear as true. In other words, such a manipulation of truth aims at causing people to believe. Using Greimas’ veridictory square built on opposing modalities of being and seeming, the contrast between reality and appearance, this article provides insight into the games of truth in Susanna and thus offers a new inspiring way of reading these kinds of stories. (shrink)

The need of reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not the same. The basic fallacy, taking precedence over all specific metaphysical fallacies, is to interpret meaning on the model of truth. (Hanna Arendt, The Life of the Mind: Thinking)2 The problem of agency in liberal political thought begins when dictates of reason grounded in philosophical truth become separated from motivations premised on desires (...) and appetites articulated in moral psychology. In the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill, political agency requires both reason and motive, and motive, in turn, requires narratives of meaning that enable and motivate us to act. These narratives incorporate elements of the sacred and these religious elements, in turn, become parts of their moral psychologies. Part I is a summary of the role of sacred narrative for human agency in Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. In America, a sacred/national narrative became an essential part of Progressive political thought at the turn of the last century. Part II explores the construction of national narratives in Progressive political thought that were intended to discredit prevailing forms of constitutionalist and other static and abstract forms of rights talk. The decline of this narrative framework and the rise of fixed principles of moral neutrality in liberal public philosophy in America during the second half of the twentieth century had two effects: it downplayed the role of civic virtue and it submerged national narratives of substantive public purpose. This narrative absence runs parallel with the demise of progressive liberalism as a formative political force in America. Recently, American public intellectuals have sought to restore narrative and patriotism to principles of liberal-progressive reform. Part III concludes by returning to the moral psychology of liberalism, this time by contrasting John Rawls and Charles Taylor on human agency. (shrink)

Truth-telling in healthcare practice can be regarded as a universal communicative virtue; however, there are different views on what consequence it has for giving or diminishing hope. The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between the concepts of truth-telling and hope from a relational ethics approach in the context of healthcare practice. Healthcare staff protect themselves and others to preserve hope in the care of seriously sick patients and in end-of-life care. This is (...) done by balancing truth-telling guided by different conditions such as the cultural norms of patients, family and staff. Our main conclusion is that the balancing of truth-telling needs to be decided in a mutual understanding in the caring relationship, but hope must always be inspired. Instead of focusing on autonomy as the only guiding principle, we would like to propose that relational ethics can serve as a meaningful perspective in balancing truth-telling. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Trouble with TruthDavid NovitzTruth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective, by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen; 481 pp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, £45.00 cloth.Lamarque and Olsen have written a surprisingly old-fashioned book. For one thing, it is carefully argued and altogether willing to sacrifice the sensational for the painstakingly difficult. Because its style is sometimes reminiscent of the careful labored philosophy of Oxford in the sixties, (...) there are many who will yawn, others who will grumble at the very idea that arguments can be sound or unsound, and assertions true or false. As a result, the book, which is a wholesome antidote to pretentiousness in literary theory and philosophy, runs the risk of being ignored by those who most need it.IThe story of the book is easily told. It begins with an excellent and accessible account of fiction (Part 1) which is used to dissect the pretensions of postmodernist literary theory—most especially the tendency (as the authors see it) to regard all discourses as fictional (Part 2). Although fiction and literature are identifiable as such “only within the context of certain practices,” each belongs to its own distinctive practice and should not be confused with the other. Even so, just as a proper understanding of fiction requires that we adopt the right “stance,” literary value can be apprehended only by taking the conventionally [End Page 350] prescribed stance—the “literary stance”; one which cannot be explicated in terms of the concept of truth. Theirs is a no-truth theory of literature that purports to distinguish literature from philosophy, and to offer an account of literary merit in terms of “universal values” that transcend particular cultures (Part 3).Needless to say, the value of this book does not only reside in the story it tells. Since it is a philosophical work and forms part of the practice of philosophy, the book is concerned with the development of our understanding, and not with the development of an intriguing narrative. In short, the value of the book—and it has considerable value—resides in careful analyses and well-developed arguments, in the understanding it promotes, in its engagement with other positions on the topic, and in its commendable clarity. Presumably, then, its value is to be determined by adopting not a “literary stance,” but what, following the authors, we could call a philosophical stance. Put thus, we see at once that whatever else this book achieves, it also invites reflection on philosophy as a practice, and on its relation to what the authors regard as the practice and the institution of literature.But why can’t philosophy develop and deploy narratives? The short answer is that it can, and that some philosophers have done as much. 1 And it is arguable, too, that there are philosophical tracts that would be much improved by doing so. But most traditional Anglo-American philosophy does not incorporate narratives. This, it seems to me, has much to do with fashion. As presently conducted, Anglo-American philosophy is a practice that emphasizes truth and reason to the exclusion of narrative and literary adornment. And so, in this respect, it is very different from literature—or at least this is what Lamarque and Olsen propose to argue. For according to the “no-truth” theory of literature that they defend, “the concept of truth has no central or ineliminable role in critical practice” (p. 1), and it is simply false that literary works “have the constitutive aim of advancing truths about human concerns...” (p. 368).IIThe argument that follows is a responsible and perceptive philosophical treatment of the relationship between fiction, literature, and truth. Fiction, we are told, cannot be explained as a type of language, nor can it be explained in terms of the truth-value of its sentences. Rather, it must be explained as a rule-governed practice, “central to [End Page 351] which are a certain mode of utterance (fictive utterance) and a certain complex of attitudes (the fictive stance)” (p. 32). Fictive utterance and response depend on the practice of fictive story-telling which is mastered at an early age (p. 33). In... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Trouble with TruthDavid NovitzTruth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective, by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen; 481 pp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, £45.00 cloth.Lamarque and Olsen have written a surprisingly old-fashioned book. For one thing, it is carefully argued and altogether willing to sacrifice the sensational for the painstakingly difficult. Because its style is sometimes reminiscent of the careful labored philosophy of Oxford in the sixties, (...) there are many who will yawn, others who will grumble at the very idea that arguments can be sound or unsound, and assertions true or false. As a result, the book, which is a wholesome antidote to pretentiousness in literary theory and philosophy, runs the risk of being ignored by those who most need it.IThe story of the book is easily told. It begins with an excellent and accessible account of fiction (Part 1) which is used to dissect the pretensions of postmodernist literary theory—most especially the tendency (as the authors see it) to regard all discourses as fictional (Part 2). Although fiction and literature are identifiable as such “only within the context of certain practices,” each belongs to its own distinctive practice and should not be confused with the other. Even so, just as a proper understanding of fiction requires that we adopt the right “stance,” literary value can be apprehended only by taking the conventionally [End Page 350] prescribed stance—the “literary stance”; one which cannot be explicated in terms of the concept of truth. Theirs is a no-truth theory of literature that purports to distinguish literature from philosophy, and to offer an account of literary merit in terms of “universal values” that transcend particular cultures (Part 3).Needless to say, the value of this book does not only reside in the story it tells. Since it is a philosophical work and forms part of the practice of philosophy, the book is concerned with the development of our understanding, and not with the development of an intriguing narrative. In short, the value of the book—and it has considerable value—resides in careful analyses and well-developed arguments, in the understanding it promotes, in its engagement with other positions on the topic, and in its commendable clarity. Presumably, then, its value is to be determined by adopting not a “literary stance,” but what, following the authors, we could call a philosophical stance. Put thus, we see at once that whatever else this book achieves, it also invites reflection on philosophy as a practice, and on its relation to what the authors regard as the practice and the institution of literature.But why can’t philosophy develop and deploy narratives? The short answer is that it can, and that some philosophers have done as much. 1 And it is arguable, too, that there are philosophical tracts that would be much improved by doing so. But most traditional Anglo-American philosophy does not incorporate narratives. This, it seems to me, has much to do with fashion. As presently conducted, Anglo-American philosophy is a practice that emphasizes truth and reason to the exclusion of narrative and literary adornment. And so, in this respect, it is very different from literature—or at least this is what Lamarque and Olsen propose to argue. For according to the “no-truth” theory of literature that they defend, “the concept of truth has no central or ineliminable role in critical practice” (p. 1), and it is simply false that literary works “have the constitutive aim of advancing truths about human concerns...” (p. 368).IIThe argument that follows is a responsible and perceptive philosophical treatment of the relationship between fiction, literature, and truth. Fiction, we are told, cannot be explained as a type of language, nor can it be explained in terms of the truth-value of its sentences. Rather, it must be explained as a rule-governed practice, “central to [End Page 351] which are a certain mode of utterance (fictive utterance) and a certain complex of attitudes (the fictive stance)” (p. 32). Fictive utterance and response depend on the practice of fictive story-telling which is mastered at an early age (p. 33). In... (shrink)

If the important role of written translation in the construction and contestation of knowledge and narratives remains largely under-explored, then the part played by interpreting and interpreters is even less examined in knowledge construction and story-telling. At a time when Beijing increasingly seeks to bolster its discursive power and have the Chinese story properly told, the interpreter-mediated and televised Premier-Meets-the-Press conferences constitute a typical discursive event andregime of truthin articulating China’s officially sanctioned “voice.” Discursive in nature, the institutionalised event (...) permits Beijing to construct a desired version of truth, fact and narrative in front of the more vociferous and dominant West. As an attempt to employ digital humanities (DH) methods to real-world language use, this corpus-based CDA study explores the press conference interpreters’ agency and mediation in rendering key concepts and discourses (e.g., ECONOMY and REFORM) constitutive of the broader Reform and Opening-up meta-narrative, which legitimises China’s political and economic systems, developments, policies and positions in the post-1978 era. The interpreters are found to maintain and often further reinforce Beijing’s discourse in English at various levels. Apart from indicating issues of institutional alignment, this study points to interpreters’ agency in communicating beyond national borders, (re)constructing political and institutional knowledge, counterbalancing the naturalised and taken-for-granted Western narratives, and contributing to the shifting East-West power differentials discursively. This study highlights the significance of interpreters as indispensable (re)tellers of the Chinese story in an increasingly mediat(is)ed world, where the interpreted discourse is routinely quotedverbatimon various platforms and taken for granted as the correct version of Beijing’s official “voice.”. (shrink)

Truth-telling to competent patients is widely affirmed as a cardinal moral and biomedical obligation in contemporary Western medical practice. In contrast, Chinese medical ethics remains committed to hiding the truth as well as to lying when necessary to achieve the family's view of the best interests of the patient. This essay intends to provide an account of the framing commitments that would both justify physician deception and have it function in a way authentically grounded in the familist (...) moral concerns of Confucianism. It reflects on the moral conditions and possibilities for sustaining a Confucian understanding of truth-telling and consent in mainland China. (shrink)

Making sense of the stories that people with Alzheimer's tell: a journey with my motherConfabulation or pseudo‐reminiscence of the sort produced by people with Alzheimer's is reconsidered by applying existing theories about the structure of narrative and work on reminiscence, and the construction of a life story to the stories told by the author's mother. This approach provides the basis for going beyond a negative estimate of confabulatory stories based on their apparent confusion of past and present, truth (...) and fantasy., to a more positive estimate of diem as complying with the norms of narrative, and as being functional for their teller as a means both of interaction and of reconstructing an identity. It also allows for identification of certain predominant themes, which may help one to grasp die general sense of such stories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Self-Knowledge and the Limitations of NarrativeJeanette BicknellIn this passage from his Confessions, St. Augustine recounts some youthful shenanigans: "In a garden nearby to our vineyard there was a pear tree.... Late one night—to which hour, according to our pestilential custom, we had kept up our street games, a group of very bad youngsters set out to shake down and rob this tree. We took great loads of fruit from (...) it, not for our own eating, but rather to throw it to the pigs.... Foul was the evil, and I loved it... I loved my fault itself. Base in soul was I...."1Here a mature Augustine looks back on his boyhood self with recrimination and reproach. Stealing pears is not seen as an immature prank but as evidence of a base soul. Yet for all the force and gravity of his words, it is not difficult to imagine a younger Augustine, before his conversion to Christianity, light-heartedly reminiscing with friends about these very same incidents. Of these two stories—the one he tells in the Confessions and the one he might have told—which provides a more accurate portrayal of Augustine's boyhood soul? Which is closer to the truth?Narrative and personal identity would seem to be inextricably bound.2 Telling stories or imposing a narrative coherence on events is one of the main ways in which we make sense of our experience. We also get to know others by listening to their stories, thus learning the narrative coherence they have placed on events in their own lives. Over the course of a lifetime stories may change. Characters first dismissed as "bit players" may gain importance. Gestures or words earlier thought to [End Page 406] be unimportant may, in retrospect, take on greater significance. With time and reflection one's past may be re-interpreted as displaying error, alienation or ignorance. A cataclysmic religious conversion is only one of many factors which might prompt such reflection and reinterpretation. Illness, divorce, and the death of loved ones are other possible causes.Here is my worry: presumably we would like to believe that our "new" stories are improvements on the old, and that they reflect greater self-knowledge, possibly even greater moral awareness. Yet given that any number of possible narratives can make sense of a set of events, how can we determine that any one story or way of understanding the past is better than any other? How are we to distinguish those stories which reflect greater understanding from those which are simply re-descriptions or re-interpretations without greater insight on the part of the individual? We may disagree about particular cases; those with a religious world view are likely to believe that, post-conversion, Augustine is telling the "right" story about the pear theft. However most would concede that some ways of understanding the world are simply less adequate than others—"less adequate" both in the sense of "less reflective of the truth" and "less conducive to good relations with others." Few would defend the worldview of the inveterate racist, for example. The problem of determining whether a story reflects greater understanding and self-understanding is all the more challenging if we take seriously the view that narrative structure is the organizing principle, not only of experiences and actions, but of the very self that experiences and acts.3 How radically must one's personal narratives change before her very identity has also changed?Concerns about the epistemological status of personal narratives bring us up against the limitations of narrative as a tool for understanding persons. Given the under-determination of narrative by events, listening to a person's stories will not be enough to understand her. In this paper I do two things. First, I illustrate some of my worries about the epistemological status of narratives through an examination of Tolstoy's short novel The Kreutzer Sonata. I argue that, despite protestations to the contrary, the protagonist has not acquired greater self-knowledge. He has changed the stories he tells about himself without having understood his past or those around him any better. Then I sketch what a genuine increase in self... (shrink)

The study examines how truth-tellers and truth-telling can be cultivated in the context of post-truth politics in the U.S. Following Foucault, it is not concerned with examining the problem of truth, with the philosophical question of how truth is determined, but with the problem of truth-tellers or truth-telling as a practical activity of self-improvement. To this end, the study traces the emergence and nature of post-truth politics in the U.S. and (...) analyzes its relation to patterns of fascist propaganda and the psychological appeal of authoritarian leaders through a psycho-social perspective. To counter the nature and ubiquity of post-truth politics, the unrelenting flow of lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories disseminated by the far-right news and information ecosystem, the author argues that educators can help students recognize truth-tellers and become truth-tellers themselves by employing certain pedagogical strategies, informed by Foucault’s analysis of parrhesia, that can equip them to criticize and resist post-truth propaganda and demagogues. (shrink)

: International instruments now defend a "right to the truth " for victims of political repression and violence and include truth telling about human rights violations as a kind of reparation as well as a form of redress. While truth telling about violations is obviously a condition of redress or repair for violations, it may not be clear how truth telling itself is a kind of reparations. By showing that concerted truth (...) class='Hi'>telling can satisfy four features of suitable reparations vehicles, I defend the idea that politically implemented modes of truth telling to, for, and by those who are victims of gross violation and injustice may with good reason be counted as a kind of reparations. Understanding the doubly symbolic character of reparations, however, makes clearer why truth telling is unlikely to be sufficient reparation for serious wrongs and is likely to be sensitive to the larger context of reparative activity and its social, political, and historical background. (shrink)

With the advanced methods of analysing old biological material, it is pressing to discuss what should be allowed to be done with human remains, particularly for well documented historical individuals. We argue that Queen Christina of Sweden, who challenged the traditional gender roles, has an interest in maintaining her privacy when there are continued attempts to reveal her ‘true’ gender. In the long-running philosophical debate on posthumous wronging, the fundamental question is: Who is wronged? Our aim is to find this (...) ‘missing subject’ using narrative theory.Narrative identity emphasises the fact that no person is alone in knowing or telling their life story. People’s lives are entangled and parts of the life story of a deceased person can remain in the living realm. Since the narrative identity of a person does not necessarily end upon their death, and this narrative continues to relate directly to the person who once existed, it is the narrative subject that can continue to be posthumously wronged. Queen Christina can no longer maintain her own identity, but we maintain it by our research into her life. We propose three duties relevant for posthumous wronging: the duty of truthfulness, the duty of recognition and the duty to respect privacy. (shrink)

Recent evidence from the neurosciences and cognitive sciences provides some support for a narrative theory of self-understanding. However, it also suggests that narrative self-understanding is unlikely to be accurate, and challenges its claims to truth. This article examines a range of this empirical evidence, explaining how it supports a narrative theory of self-understanding while raising questions of these narrative's accuracy and veridicality. I argue that this evidence does not provide sufficient reason to dismiss the possibility (...) of truth in narrative self-understanding. Challenges to the possibility of attaining true, accurate self-knowledge through a self-narrative have previously been made on the basis of the epistemological features of narrative. I show how the empirical evidence is consistent with the epistemological concerns, and provide three ways to defend the notion of narrative truth. I also aim to show that neuroethical discussions of self-understanding would benefit from further engagement with the philosophical literature on narrative truth. (shrink)

This article aims to examine critically the ‘cultural incompatibility’ argument, which asserts that disclosure of cancer-related information to patients is incompatible with Turkey’s cultural context. For this purpose, a brief overview of the approach to truth-telling in Turkey will first be provided, followed by the claims of two different Turkish authors on the issue and a critical analysis of their approach. It will be contended that this argument has actually been formulated with paternalistic concerns and it may be (...) playing an important role in shaping the approach of Turkish health care professionals to the issue. The article will then examine, in the light of study findings and case reports from Turkey, the concept of patient autonomy as it applies to truth-telling issues. It will be concluded that truth-telling can be compatible with Turkey’s cultural context, provided that health care professionals place more emphasis on good communication with their patients. (shrink)

The choice is clear: truth, justice, freedom or lies, injustice, bondage? The good life and a just society depend on truth telling, but perhaps we are more comfortable with lies and fake news? How can we recognize the truth when everyone does "what is right in their own eyes"? When we accept and expect lies, how is civil society possible? How can we decide what is true, good, and right? If everyone has their own moral compass, (...) is there any compass at all? This book addresses the skepticism about our capacity to know anything for sure and the inevitable consequences of moral relativism. The author says that skepticism and relativism cannot provide effective barriers against the drift by democracies into authoritarianism--characterized by the heavy use of state power to impose the culture of one kind of Me on us all. In the past religion provided a beacon of hope and as the bedrock for our society and its laws. Now, religion is confined to the private and often silent recesses of the person. How then can we speak of God, truth, power, and justice as a society? These are some of the questions that the book takes up. Long begins by saying that truth and freedom promote human flourishing and concludes by pointing us to how we can discern and practice truth telling as private citizens and as people of faith. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddha Loves Me! This I Know, for the Dharma Tells Me SoDonald K. SwearerI intend no disrespect to either the Buddha or the Christ by my rewrite of Anna Bartlett Warner’s 1859 Sunday school song, “Jesus Loves Me.” That one might construct the Buddha in the image of a loving Jesus may be more startling or offensive to Buddhists (and also to Christians) than the modern, apologetic view of (...) the Buddha as a rational renouncer. Versions of both can be textually justified; however, each is a reification that reflects the bias of the interpreter. Both ignore the complexity of the figure of the Buddha within the varied and diverse traditions of Buddhism. My starting point in the following essay acknowledges this complexity as well as the inevitable limitations of my personal interpretation of the Buddha, necessarily conditioned by my experience. I propose to structure the essay around two polarities—universal/particular and wisdom/compassion—looking first at the Buddha and then briefly reflecting dialogically at the end of each section on the figure of the Christ.Buddha: Universal and ParticularIn my personal experience in Buddhist Asia, especially Thailand, and my studies of Buddhist traditions, in particular the Theravada, I have been impressed by the creative tension between the universal and particular dimensions of the figure of the [End Page 113] Buddha. Even the modern Western view of the Buddha evidences this tension. Typically the word Buddha evokes the story of Prince Siddhattha’s renunciation of his royal status, subsequent quest for enlightenment, and eventual realization of nibbana. 1 In the hands of a comparative mythologist such as Joseph Campbell, the detailed embellishments of the Buddha’s sacred biography are absorbed into the tripartite, monomyth structure of the hero’s narrative—separation, attainment, return. For Campbell, the story of the historical Buddha, Siddhattha Gotama, represents a rite of passage, a deep psychological truth of self-discovery symbolized by other heroes in world mythology. Despite the antistructuralist critique by historical and textual scholars, as well as the feminist criticism that the heroic journey does not reflect women’s experience, in one form or another the Buddha reified as an exemplar of the universal paradigm of the individual’s journey of self-realization continues to capture the Western imagination.A somewhat more sophisticated version of the universal hero motif is the Buddha as ‘rational renouncer,’ an interpretation favored by both Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism who portray the Buddha as an empiricist and pragmatist somewhat on the order of William James. In this view, Prince Siddhattha’s quest was a rational response to the experience of suffering, and the truth he perceived on the night of his enlightenment was nothing more nor less than a direct perception of the universal law of cause and effect obscured to ordinary awareness. De-emphasizing both the ascetical and devotional aspects of the Buddha’s sacred biography, the rational renouncer school of thought places its emphasis on epistemological transformation characterized in Buddhist texts as “seeing things as they really are.”The Buddha as universal hero and as rational renouncer can be critiqued as modernized, rationalized, westernized reifications of the Buddha, an example of the ‘orientialist’ distortion that characterized the colonial project. Charles Hallisey has pointed out that such reconstructions of the Buddha were not merely the products of Western scholars but owed much to Asian Buddhists as well. 2 But are we to assume that throughout the history of Buddhism, similar hermeneutical moves and debates over the nature of the Buddha did not exist? I find a tension in the Buddhist tradition between two contrasting images of the Buddha: as an exemplar of a universal truth, and as a being defined by the contingencies of human particularities.Theravada Buddhists find strong support in the sutta for a humanistic interpretation of the Buddha. In particular, they argue that the Buddha of the early Buddhist canonical texts specifically denied that he was a god, and that he was a teacher of the truth he perceived at his enlightenment. They find support for this view in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, wherein the Buddha tells his followers that when he dies the teaching and the disciplinary rules he... (shrink)

Education about catastrophes often begins with, and at times even focuses on, passing down catastrophe memories. For this education, catastrophe memories that are unique to the survivors must be translated carefully to ensure that they can be understood by successors who may not have experienced a catastrophe themselves. This study elaborates on the structure of the translation of these memories between the survivors and successors. It also focuses on the educational significance of the practical application of such translations. Section 1 (...) describes the purpose of this study while Section 2 examines the reasons for the emphasis on passing down survivors’ memories in catastrophe education. Section 3 focuses on telling-listening exchanges while passing down these memories and examines the structure and characteristics of such exchanges. It was identified that it is imperative that these exchanges should communicate the experience that cannot be translated in words or is incommensurable. If both, the survivors and successors, are truthful to the incommensurability, and if they both dare to experience it, they will be able to find the potential and possibilities to transform human lives and societies while weaving together the narratives of catastrophe memories that would be transformed and generated endlessly. (shrink)

Using a real-life case involving an accidental discovery of misattributed paternity as a springboard for discussion, I reflect on several practical and theoretical issues surrounding truth-telling in the doctor-patient relationship. I present the moral dilemma and identify arguments in favour of and against disclosure. I then examine the theoretical difficulties in balancing conflicting reasons and in establishing what constitutes the 'truth'. I conclude that withholding the information from the patients would be ethically permissible and, more generally, that (...) honesty is not always the best policy. (shrink)