Dimensions Of Truth Research Articles

English

The concept of regime of truth clearly refers to the well-known circularity Foucault establishes between power and knowledge: we should speak of a ‗regime‘ of truth because truth is produced, sustained, valorized and regulated by a series of mechanisms, techniques and procedures that are ‗political‘ if we understand this term the way Foucault does: politics has to do not only with institutions, but with the complex and constitutive field of power relations within which we ordinarily live, and at the same time truth itself reinforces and induces effects of power. A regime of truth is thus the strategic field within which truth is produced and becomes a tactical element in the functioning of a certain number of power relations. The idea that truth gives us no choice, that truth necessarily forces us to accept it and build up our conduct in accordance to it, is an extremely dangerous ethico-political trap that Foucault can help us to unmask and overcome. The present paper discusses the various dimensions of truth and power as narrated by Foucault.

On some Aspects of Life Writing in Bernard Kangro’s Kuus päeva and Seitsmes päev

The Second World War cleft Estonian literature into two halves for half a century: the literature of the homeland and the literature of the diaspora. Bernard Kangro (1910–1994), who fled Estonia in 1944, was a prolific writer, the editor of the magazine Tulimuld and the head of the main diaspora publishing house Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv. Kuus paeva ( Six Days , 1980) and Seitsmes paev ( The Seventh Day , 1984) are Kangro’s last novels. Kangro began drawing up plans for these two novels at the beginning of the 1970s, when western scholars were taking a deeper interest in life writing. From the perspective of form, Kangro’s novels have a special status in Estonian literature; in Kuus paeva , Kangro uses the diary form to create a meta-level in the novel with the goal of analyzing the specificity of autobiographical writing; in Seitsmes paev this meta-level is achieved through the imaginary diary of the biographer-protagonist, which consists of his reflections and experiences while writing a biography. These reflections and experiences derive from Kangro’s own preliminary research for the historical novel Kuus paeva . Seitsmes paev thus becomes the metatext for Kuus paeva . The main theme of the first novel of the dilogy is the writing of autobiography as such. Through the protagonist Andreas Sunesen, a historical figure, questions are raised concerning the concept of truth in autobiographical writing, the relations between autobiographical writing and historical writing and the function of confessionality in autobiographical narrative. The second focus of this article is on the issues connected to the writing of biography, as thematized in Seitsmes paev . In Kuus paeva , three meanings of the concept of truth can be differentiated: the truth expressed by the autobiographer (which the protagonist also refers to as “eternal truth“); the truth of historical events, which is expressed in their claim to authenticity, their correspondence or harmony with reality; and the truth about the existence of the autobiographer, which should appear as a result of the verbalization of his self-examination and memory work. The story of the mission to the eastern Baltic Sea region contained in Andreas’ autobiographical narrative points rather to the inseparability of the first two dimensions of truth, at least to the extent that the narrator of these historical events is also their witness and participant. Thus, it is unavoidable that he would relay what has happened from the vantage point of his present needs and purposes. Kangro’s novel seems to support the Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s claim about self-narration: the autobiographical narrative can only answer the question of what a person was, not the question of his or her existence. In Seitsmes paev , the second novel of the dilogy, a philosophical question is foregrounded – the question of the task of the biographer. As far as the poetics of this novel is concerned, the answer to this question remains ambivalent.

LA IMAGINACIÓN: ¿ORNAMENTO O CREACIÓN DE MUNDOS?

Con la palabra “imaginación” se hace referencia a prácticas muy diversas. Este trabajo procura responder dos preguntas. En primer lugar, se intenta ofrecer, de manera descriptiva, una caracterización general enumerando varios candidatos a propiedades comunes de las diversas formas de imaginación: intervención imaginante, desarrollo de un escenario imaginario que se constituye con bloqueos parciales de la dimensión de verdad. En segundo lugar, se traza una diferencia normativa entre fantasía e imaginación desarrollando la metáfora “murallas versus puentes”: la fantasía levanta “murallas” frente a la realidad y, así, los movimientos mentales que se desplegan son centrípetos. La imaginación desarrolla “puentes” con movimientos centrífugos.

Analysis of scientific truth status in controlled rehabilitation trials

Systematic reviews, meta-analyses and clinical guidelines (reviews) are intended to inform clinical practice, and in this sense can be thought of as scientific truthmakers. High-quality controlled trials should align to this truth, and method quality markers should predict truth status. We sought to determine in what way controlled trial quality relates to scientific truth, and to determine predictive utility of trial quality and bibliographic markers. A sample of reviews in rehabilitation medicine was examined. Two scientific truth dimensions were established based on review outcomes. Quality and bibliographic markers were extracted from associated trials for use in a regression analysis of their predictive utility for trial truth status. Probability analysis was undertaken to examine judgments of future trial truth status. Of the 93 trials included in contemporaneous reviews, overall, n = 45 (48%) were true. Randomization was found more in true trials than false trials in one truth dimension (P = 0.03). Intention-to-treat analysis was close to significant in one truth dimension (P = 0.058), being more commonly used in false trials. There were no other significant differences in quality or bibliographic variables between true and false trials. Regression analysis revealed no significant predictors of trial truth status. Probability analysis reported that the reasonable chance of future trials being true was between 2 and 5%, based on a uniform prior. The findings are at odds with what is considered gold-standard research methods, but in line with previous reports. Further work should focus on scientific dynamics within healthcare research and evidence-based practice constructs.

WE‐C‐204B‐02: Disparity between 4DCT and CBCT Reconstruction of Internal Target Volumes

Purpose: Internal target volumes (ITVs) generated from different imaging modalities may not be identical. These differences could be due to inherent limitations in image reconstruction, and in this study we investigate the differences between 4DCT‐MIP generated ITVs and CBCT reconstructions of moving targets. Methods/Materials: A cork lung phantom with three embedded targets was attached to a programmable motion platform to simulate lung and tumor motion. Ideal sinusoidal motion and other simulated patterns were used to compare ITV dimensions reconstructed from 4DCT and CBCT. Four 4DCT and ten CBCT generated ITVs from four lung cancer patients were also compared using a physician's contour as ground truth. Results: CBCT targets along the direction of motion were consistently smaller than the 4DCT equivalents (by 0.49 +/− 0.50 cm) in the phantom measurements. The amplitude was varied during a single scan from 1 to 4 cm, and both 4DCT and CBCT under‐represented the ground truth dimension by 2.13 (+/−0.64) cm and 2.69 (+/−0.50) cm. Patient lung tumors did not reveal a similar pattern of smaller ITVs from CBCT. Lateral motion due to proximity to the heart resulted in lateral discrepancies for two patients, with CBCT ITV 0.32 cm and 0.68 cm larger than the 4DCT ITV. For the two other patients, the CBCT ITV was larger along the tumor's primary direction of motion. Conclusions: Even under ideal periodic motion, CBCT generated ITVs can deviate from their 4DCT counterparts. These variations are often assumed to be due to physiological changes, but may actually occur due to limitations in CBCT reconstruction. If irregular motion in actual patient cases is observed, the discrepancy between the 4DCT ITV and the CBCT counterpart can be greater than 5mm and adaptive re‐optimization based on CBCT ITV may not be beneficial.

Relationship between nursing students’ epistemological beliefs and locus of control

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between nursing students' epistemologic beliefs and locus of control, and the research was conducted at Istanbul University Florence Nightingale School of Nursing with 350 nursing students. Data were collected using the Turkish version of the Epistemological beliefs questionnaire and Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. In the data analysis number, percentage, mean, correlation analysis, one-way analysis of variance and Tukey HSD test were used. The findings as whole indicated that nursing students' epistemological beliefs that "The Belief of Learning Depends on Effort (Effort)" showed a greater degree of development than their beliefs about the two other dimensions as named "The Belief of Learning Depends on Ability (Ability)" and "The Belief That There is Only One Unchanging Truth (Unchanging Truth)" in this study, while their belief that there is Unchanging Truth was not developed when compared to the other two. There was a positive correlation between nursing students locus of control and Effort and Ability dimensions, but a significant correlation was not found with Unchanging Truth dimension. This researcher suggests that research should be carried out to determine nursing students' epistemological beliefs and the factors influencing them in an environment to promote the development of these beliefs, and thus the research can be used to learn about the development of the epistemological beliefs.

Communicative action: the Habermasian and Freirean dialogical approach to participatory communication for social change in a post-1994 South Africa

Despite its almost four decade mainstay, the field of parti-cipatory communication for social change still experiences a definitional and pragmatic problem regarding what exactly participation is (cf. Jacobson & Storey, 2004; Chambers, 1994; Melkote & Steeves, 2001; Rogers, 1976; Lerner, 1964; Schramm, 1964; Servaes, 1995). What remains is a vastly under-theorised field of participatory communication for social change. This article examines the possibility of participatory communication approaching the Habermasian “ideal speech situation” in which people, as communicators, are seen as having a value in their own right and not simply regarded as a means to an end (cf. Habermas, 1984; 1987; 1989). Consistent with the Freirean “liberal pedagogy”, the praxis of dialogical communication or intersubjective communication is seen as putting right the “participative” quality of participatory com-munication (cf. Freire, 1970). For both theorists, transformative action can only occur if reflective and collective learning occurs in linguistically constructed settings where the normative dimensions of truth (logos), rightfulness (ethos) and truthfulness (pathos) are raised and met in the developmental conversation. This is especially significant in a globalised world and fragmented, post-bourgeois public sphere where debate among developmental stakeholders is becoming more marginal, in-strumentalist, and less public. Based on available analyses of development communication literature, this article proposes that the chosen dialogical approaches share a type of communi-cative behaviour (i.e. action theoretic), rather than representing a particular paradigm or school of thought. This could offer further definitional clarification of proper participatory communi-cation for social change in a post-1994 South Africa.

Passionate Utterance and Moral Education

This paper explores Stanley Cavell's notion of ‘passionate utterance’, which acts as an extension of/departure from (we might read it as both) J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Cavell argues that Austin having made the revolutionary discovery that truth claims in language are bound up with how words perform, then gets bogged by convention when discussing what is done ‘by’ words. In failing to account for the less predictable, unconventional aspects of language, the latter therefore washes his hands of the expressive passionate aspects of speech. To ignore such aspects is to ignore an important moral dimension of language. Finally, I bring Cavell's approach to bear on the epistemic criterion, which Michael Hand applies in his paper ‘Should We Teach Homosexuality as a Controversial Issue?’. I suggest that Hand's approach, by failing to account for the linguistic dimension of truth and the expressive quality that accompanies this dimension, presents an overly narrow conception of moral education.

Review of Beyond the reflection: The role of the mirror paradigm in clinical practice.

Reviews the book, Beyond the reflection: The role of the mirror paradigm in clinical practice by Paulina Kernberg, Bernadette Buhl-Nielsen, and Lina Normandin (see record 2007-00911-000). This modestly presented volume overflows with insight and new ways of looking at the mirroring experience for children and adolescents. Kernberg and her collaborators present the rich history of the image, metaphor, and pervasive role of the mirror in human experience; they carefully describe the "subjective experience of wonder, admiration, and an objective dimension of truth" in the mirror paradigm (2006, p. xv). For the psychotherapist, Kernberg's work provides a rich resource; the review of past and current research and theorizing about the mirroring function of mothers and primary caregivers is thorough and up-to-date with the most recent advances in neuroscience, attachment theory, and infant research. From Freud to Lacan, from Winnicott to Stern, and from Schore to Gergely, Kernberg presents a sweeping exposition of the various images of the mirror. This volume is worthwhile if only for its presentation of this body of recent research. But there is so much more to be found here. While this is not the first time that Kernberg has presented us with her work with mirror observation and interviews (Kernberg, 1984, 1987), this volume integrates the research about early mother- child experience, and the mirroring paradigm in the psychoanalytic theories about child development, with the phenomenology of child and adolescent psychotherapy. The clinician will find a useful application of the theory to clinical practice and diagnosis that is hard to find in the literature. Beebe and Lachmann (2002) have accomplished this integration between infant research and adult treatment, but Kernberg's application of her research and the demonstrated correlation between the findings of mirror experience, attachment histories, and clinical experience is a rare and welcome addition to the literature. There are also valuable links made between the findings around mirror experience and children's trauma histories. This reader came away feeling that a tremendous debt is owed to the authors for helping to ground clinical theory and practice in substantial current research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Pedagoginių veiksnių įtaka vyresniųjų paauglių dvasiniam tapsmui

Straipsnyje pateikiami vyresniųjų paauglių dvasinių vertybių internalizacijos tyrimo rezultatai. Atskleidžiamas dvasinių vertybių ir tiesioginių, įkūnijančių tiesioginį santykį su pedagogais, ir netiesioginių, išreiškiančių sąlytį su mokymusi bei kitais pedagoginiais veiksniais, ryšys, ir ryškinamos galimos pedagoginio poveikio tendencijos.

A systematic theological theory of truth in Kathryn Tanner's Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology

This paper raises the truth question to explore the possibility of constructing a system of systematic theology in the contemporary context. By using Schleiermacher's thought as a constructive resource, two dimensions of truth are discussed in dialogue with Kathryn Tanner's book Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology: coherence and correspondence. Addressed in the first section is coherence, along with its auxiliary, comprehensiveness, as a requirement for system. The whole of the Christian world view is grasped by a principle of coherence that reflects both a subjective component of authorial individuality and an objective component of an individual grasp of the ‘spirit of the age’. Furthermore, consensus regarding systematic coherence in Western Christian thought agrees on a metanarrative structuring doctrines from creation to apocalypse. In Tanner's work, the principle of coherence is gift-giving that is traced from an inner-trinitarian narrative to its outer-trinitarian expressions in creation, the incarnation, eschatology, as well as in ethical response. Thematized in the second section is the tricky issue of theological correspondence between claims of redemption on the one hand and the sin, evil, and tragedy of the world on the other. Tanner's book offers one solution to this problem: analogical correspondence that situates doctrinal patterns of gift-giving (such as the incarnation, creation) as concentric circles in varying degrees of correspondence to their inner-trinitarian center. In view of this solution, this paper questions the relation between systematic coherence and the reality of both life's brokenness and the depths of divine self-giving pathos.

Review: Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World

1Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World Robert Nozick Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press 2001 416 Hardback£23.95

Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu's Reforms (review)

Reviewed by: Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu's Reforms David L. Wank (bio) Don A. Pittman . Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu's Reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. xi, 387 pp. Hardcover $54.00, ISBN 0-8248-2064-4. Many defining characteristics of contemporary Buddhism in Chinese social settings were inspired by Taixu, the reformist monk who lived in the first half of the twentieth century. These include engaged Buddhism, ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, proselytizing and charity, Buddhist seminaries, and layperson empowerment. Yet discussion of him in a work for English-reading audiences has tended to be piecemeal and superficial. Don Pittman's book-length intellectual biography of Taixu helps remedy this. It examines the massive corpus of Taixu's works, his activities over the years, and the reactions of his contemporaries in their attempts to sketch Taixu's ideas, their historical context, and links to Buddhist theology. Taixu embodied a Buddhist variant of the concern in Chinese intellectual life at the beginning of the twentieth century to respond to the dizzying changes and challenges posed by the quickening flow of Western institutions and ideas into China. Within the Sangha this was expressed in a concern for how Buddhism could meet the challenge of Christianity, which was gaining converts through aggressive proselytizing and charity and threatening to marginalize Buddhism. Buddhism's emphasis on salvation through retreat from the world led many Chinese intellectuals to see Buddhism as irrelevant to contemporary concerns and even a cause for the backwardness and passivity of Chinese culture compared to the dynamic, "modern" West. Taixu was one of the small minority in the Sangha who sought to revive Buddhism by reworking the theology to fit contemporary needs and by borrowing from Christianity. His reform efforts were squarely in the mode of Chinese intellectuals who saw themselves as using Western institutions to "modernize" China while rejecting the ideas and values they were seen as harboring. Taixu admired the capacity of Christianity to organize and motivate believers. He attributed this to its associations [End Page 222] and its rituals which, through fellowship, inspired followers with the belief that Christianity was a universal religion. However, he completely rejected Christian theology because he felt that it wrongly emphasized the dependence of humanity on god, the idea of the eternal soul, and the belief that salvation comes from God alone. His modernizing efforts adapted such Christian institutions as social welfare, modern schools, proselytizing, and lay participation, but for attaining salvation he focused on Buddhist theology. He rationalized Buddhist theology in an approach that Pittman terms "ethnical piety." Taixu interpreted the visionary dimensions of truth in Buddhism as norms for this-worldly behavior. He held that the Buddhist ideal of emptiness could be achieved not by renouncing this-worldly concerns but rather through selfless engagement with social and political realities. Not only could the path to salvation be found in becoming a monk or nun but it could be trod by any layperson who followed Buddhist precepts in daily life. Taixu also maintained that a "pure land" of everlasting peace and contentment would come about if people the world over observed Buddhism. This approach rested not so much on Taixu's original thinking but rather on his creative recovery of the relatively neglected Weishi (conscious-only) tradition in order to emphasize practical engagement and multiple paths to boddhisatvahood. Taixu's ideas provoked much controversy among his contemporaries. Fellow monks felt that the Buddhism advocated by him with its emphasis on this-worldly activity was not genuine Buddhism, while intellectuals dismissed him as a religious utopian. Furthermore, his peripatetic travels and personal fame in China and abroad, as well as his close contacts with members of the political elite, led many to see him as a publicity hound. But Pittman maintains that Taixu was misunderstood. He cultivated elites because of the reality that a revitalized Sangha would need approval by those who held political power. His foreign travels were efforts to proselytize and engage others in interfaith dialogue. For example, Pittman cites Taixu's trip abroad in 1939-1940 as a representative of the Nationalist government, which expected him to enlist foreign support for China's war of...

Structural optimization in truth dimension

Optimization theory has advanced considerably during the last three decades as is illustrated by a vast number of published books, surveys, and papers concerning this subject. An optimal decision under uncertainty conditions is dependent on the Engineer's objectives, which may be not known with certainty or represented by natural language. To deal with this problem, in this paper, a new approach based on coupling the existing knowledge of experts and numerical results obtained from traditional optimization techniques is presented using non-conventional logic. To cite this article: C. Tran, C. R. Mecanique 330 (2002) 609–614.

Truth, Sentential Non-Compositionalit, and Ontology

The paper attempts to clarify some fundamental aspects of an explanationof the concept of truth which is neither “deflationary” nor “substantive”.The main aspect examined in detail concerns the ontological dimension of truth, the mind/language-world connection traditionally associated with the concept of truth. It is claimed that it does not make sense to defend or reject a relatedness of truth to the ontological dimension so long as the kind of presupposed or envisaged ontology is not made explicit and critically examined. In particular, it is shown that generally an “objectual” ontology is – often only implicitly – presupposed, i.e., an ontology admitting “objects” (substances), properties, relations, sometimes also facts, events, and the like. The paper demonstrates that such an ontology derives from the Principle of Semantic Sentential Compositionality and that this principle should be rejected. It introduces instead the Principle of Semantic Sentential Contextuality (or Context Principle) as the semantic basis of a new ontology, an ontology of “primary states of affairs”. After sketching such an ontology, it is shown that the relatedness of truth to the ontological dimension becomes intelligible.

Diagnosis as care - diagnosis as politics

This paper discusses the nature of diagnosis as a quest for truth and its application in two different contexts, namely, psychotherapeutic relationships and non-psychotherapeutic interpersonal conflicts. Using Ken Wilber's four quadrant approach to truth, the validity claims of four truth dimensions - subjective and objective as well as individual and collective dimensions - are discussed first in regard to the psychotherapeutic relationship. Different modes of the therapeutic relationship are described, based on the work of Martha Stark and Petruska Clarkson. The article shows how truth is understood very differently in these various modes, thus confirming and elaborating on Wilber's claims. While the overall purpose of diagnosis in a psychotherapeutic context is care, its painful purpose within other relationships is usually to disqualify an opponent. In the second part of the article, two fallacies of truth and some political functions of a publicly suggested diagnosis are described. Diagnosis can even be used to disqualify an opponent for methods of conflict resolution such as mediation, as will be discussed in reference to an example. Instead of compromising the various dimensions of truth by a misplaced diagnosis within a political context, the article supports means of conflict resolution as forms of social intelligence.

Truth games: Lies, money and psychoanalysis.

Lying on the couch, the patient must tell all. And yet, as the psychoanalyst well knows, the patient is endlessly unable and unwilling to speak the truth. This perversity at the heart of psychoanalysis, a focus on intimate truths even as the lines between truth and lies are being redrawn, is also at the centre of this book of essays by the historian of psychoanalysis John Forrester. Continuing the work begun in Dispatches from the Freud Wars, this book offers a philosophical and historical perspective on the mechanics, moral dilemmas, and implications of psychoanalysis. Lacan observed that the psychoanalyst's patient is, even when lying, operating in the dimension of truth. Beginning with Lacan's reading of Freud's case history of the Rat Man, Forrester pursues the logic and consequences of this assertion through Freud's relationship with Lacan into the general realm of psychoanalysis and out into the larger questions of anthropology, economics, and metaphysics that underpin the practice. His search takes him into the parallels between money and speech through an exploration of the metaphors of circulation, exchange, indebtedness, and trust that glide from one domain to the other. These essays aim to provide an understanding of the uses and abuses and the significance of truth telling and lying, trust and confidence as they operate in psychoanalysis and in the world of the self and society that it seeks to know.

Op zoek naar een waarheid die verplicht

SummaryIn this paper I want to query L. Boeve's postmodern notion of truth as deficiency and radical plurality. In order to do so, I depart from a general analysis of truth and its ethical implications, especially with regard to the relation between universality and particularity. By stressing the practical dimension of truth, it becomes possible to overcome the dominant opposition between the universal truth of positive science and the particularity of opinions and beliefs within (religious) traditions. In this way, the question of the specific truth of traditions and its relation to other dimensions of truth can be approached from a new perspective. First of all we are obliged to truth in the sense that all our thinking and speaking necessarily has a truth-presumption. As a thinking being man participates in an order of truth. This presupposes that he is implicitly familiar with it, that truth is to some extent interior in man. But on the other hand, this familiarity can never lead to a complete assimil...

Op Zoek Naar Een Waarheid Die Verplicht

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeSummaryIn this paper I want to query L. Boeve's postmodern notion of truth as deficiency and radical plurality. In order to do so, I depart from a general analysis of truth and its ethical implications, especially with regard to the relation between universality and particularity. By stressing the practical dimension of truth, it becomes possible to overcome the dominant opposition between the universal truth of positive science and the particularity of opinions and beliefs within (religious) traditions. In this way, the question of the specific truth of traditions and its relation to other dimensions of truth can be approached from a new perspective. First of all we are obliged to truth in the sense that all our thinking and speaking necessarily has a truth-presumption. As a thinking being man participates in an order of truth. This presupposes that he is implicitly familiar with it, that truth is to some extent interior in man. But on the other hand, this familiarity can never lead to a complete assimilation of truth by thinking. Truth is never completely present and manifest for thinking, but has an undeniable aspect of exteriority. Thus, the fact that man is obliged to truth implies a peculiar entanglement of interiority and exteriority with regard to truth. Another element in this obligation to truth is its universality. Man can never be the ultimate warrant of the truth of his thinking. If truth-claims have any sense, they must refer to a universality which lies beyond the particularity of individual situations and traditions. From this perspective, a radical imputation of any universality, related to a similarly radical plea for the plurality and particularity of truth poses insurmountable problems, because it is inadequate to our experiences of truth, and to the way in which truth functions in human thinking and speaking. This implies the necessity of a metaphysical analysis of truth, which focuses on the transcendental aspects of our obligation to truth.But there is also a second dimension in the relation between truth and obligation. Since man is a corporal being, his thinking is characterised by his spatio-temporal situation. This implies that truth only shows itself as a plurality and particularity of insights, within the giveness of concrete situations, e.g. religious traditions; it is bound to life in its concretenesss. In this context another aspect of the ethical dimension of truth appears: truth is not only a theoretical matter, but is also related to faithfulness, to true life. The world we live in, with its socio-economical and cultural structures, traditions etc. has a specific truth, in spite of its manifest contingency and irrationality. From this perspective truth is what makes life liveable, and thus it is related to the good life. This implies again that truth has a normative function with regard to life in its concreteness. Thus particularity and plurality are integrated into our conception of truth.This entanglement of the universality and particularity, unity and plurality of truth remains a paradox for our thinking, but it is not necessarily a dichotomy. In order to think this paradox adequately a ‘rigid metaphysics’ is necessary. On the one hand this metaphysical thinking is rooted in the life-world and analyses its truth, characterised by plurality and particularity. But on the other hand this thinking has to relate the particular truth of the lived life with other possibilities and experiences of thinking. Thus it discovers its openness for universal truth as a regulative idea, that orientates our thinking about the truth of the life-world and its traditions, and can serve as its standard.On the base of this analysis I query Boeve's position on two points. Firstly, I wonder whether his conception of truth as a ‘relationship to an incompletable deficiency’ and as radical plurality is not deficient itself with regard to truth. It is evident that universal truth always manifests itself to human thinking in the mode of particularity and plurality (cfr. above). But as a regulative idea it orientates our thinking and helps us to overcome the deadlock of radical plurality. Some substantial qualification of truth is necessary, and in my view Boeve's notion of truth as a deficiency cannot serve such a purpose. Secondly, I wonder whether Boeve's notion of truth as radical plurality enables him to maintain his claim that thinking has a ‘relationship’ with truth. Does the postmodern concept of plurality not imply an incommensurability, that excludes any relationship?

Art and Architecture

Art is the indigenous offspring of a society; its distinctive music, literature, drama, visual arts, and architecture emerge in its maturity. This essay explores the spiritual significance of the relationship between traditional and new forms of artistic expression from the author’s experience as an architect. To Bahá’ís, creating a work of art is equivalent to an act of worship. In the Bahá’í Era, artists will find a new dimension of abstract truth. However, mastery of any branch of the arts requires a rigorous discipline not generally appreciated. If artists are in advance of the mass of their contemporaries. They must try to open others’ eyes to the world which already stands revealed before them. When the full implications of the Bahá’í Revelation for art are grasped, artists will turn towards the Bahá’í Faith, seeing in this religion a new gateway into spiritual worlds.