The purpose of this thesis is to develop a critical reading of Badiou&rsquo / s theory of truth. Contemporary popular trends such as postmodernism and anti-philosophy champion the principles of pluralism and contingency. They use these against Hegel&rsquo / s conception of history and theory of &lsquo / relational totality&rsquo / . Badiou agrees with these trends. But he criticizes their relativist theory of truth. He wants to provide an &lsquo / objective&rsquo / foundation for &lsquo / truth&rsquo / . The question I wish to explore in this thesis is then to analyze critically Badiou&rsquo / s work to find out whether he succeeds? To do this I am presenting Badiou&rsquo / s philosophical sources in ancient and modern philosophy and his main concepts he relies on. I am analyzing in particular in depth Badiou&rsquo / s understanding of ontology and phenomenology. To explain his concept of truth, I am analyzing his concepts of &lsquo / void&rsquo / , &lsquo / plurality&rsquo / , &lsquo / infinity&rsquo / . However, to make sense of his theory of truth more fully, I am looking also at his conceptions of &lsquo / event&rsquo / and subject&rsquo / , which are the main components of his theory of truth. After having analyzed his theory of of truth, I am looking at his conception of emancipatory politics, to see how his conception of truth works in his practical philosophy.

Thesis (M.S.)--North Carolina State University. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-39).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-122).

My guiding question is this: how does what is metaphysically differ from what was, will be, or might have been? The first half of the dissertation concerns ontology: are the apparent disputes over the existence of merely past, merely future, and merely possible entities genuine and nontrivial disputes? After demarcating the various positions one might take in these disputes, I argue that the disputes are, in fact, genuine. I then offer—in the second half of the dissertation—a limited defense of presentism, the view that only present things exist. In particular, I defend presentism against one of the most significant classes of objections to it—the class of objections claiming that it cannot account for a variety of past-oriented truths. In giving this defense, I draw on insights from the dispute between modal actualists—those who hold that everything is actual— and their rivals. / text

This project looks at the relationship between music performance and truth in narrative. Music performance is a fluid and dynamic process with complex and multiple relationships among musician, audience, text, and production. The five sections of this thesis discuss five different musical performances that address different aspects of this dynamic process. I look at the relationship between music performance and Performance Studies, issues of personae and presence, questions of identity and masculinity, pedagogy and performance, and the intersections of writing and performance. The five musical performances in this project are written to not only discuss important aspects of music and performance, but also frame my arguments about truth in narrative. I argue truth should be carefully considered because it is an idea that has a great deal of power. Truth exists in complex relationships among reader and writer, genre and text, and experience and story. Like music, approaching truth as a concept that is fluid opens up possibilities for understanding the implications truth has on the stories we live and tell.

For many years, El Salvador and Guatemala were submerged in brutal and bloody conflicts that cost the lives of tens of thousands. United Nations-brokered Peace Accords officially brought the years of violence to an end in 1992 and 1996, respectively. As the two countries slowly emerged from their respective Cold War-inspired internal conflicts, the question of what place the past would have in the present came to the fore. This dissertation explores the way past violence is talked about in the public sphere. It analyzes post-Peace Accords public discourse in both countries, with a particular focus on the issues of memory, forgetting, truth, reconciliation, and related terms. It examines the different tasks memory and truth were assigned in the Peace Accords, especially in relation to the truth/truth-like commissions created out of those accords, and in the years since, and looks at the language those who reject memory and truth use to oppose them. This dissertation argues that a common discursive framework exists in Guatemala that dictates that all sectors must insist on the importance of remembering the violence to prevent repetition. This is the human rights community's discourse, but it is one which even conservatives who wish for forgetting must repeat. Conservatives can only promote forgetting within the limits of this discursive framework, and they do so by talking about amnesty, perdón (pardon/forgiveness), and reconciliation. The situation in El Salvador is different. There is no common discursive framework that demands memory to prevent repetition and promote reconciliation. Rather than this, conservatives openly insist on amnesty and amnesia, while the human rights community insists on truth and memory. The discursive battle between forgetting and truth is El Salvador's discursive framework. Yet talking about memory, truth, reconciliation, and related topics leaves space to promote different truths, memories, or narratives of the past. This, indeed, is precisely what happens in both countries as different sectors actively promote their own truth, memory, or narrative, especially at moments of rupture or when their truth or discourse is challenged, as in 2012 when Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes asked for perdón for the El Mozote massacre and during Guatemala's 2013 genocide trial. Running throughout the discussion about discourse and discursive frameworks is a critique of the insistence on the existence of one truth, memory, or narrative of the past. This is the foundation on which truth and truth-like commissions are built. Yet rather than focusing on the truth of the past, this dissertation argues that the process of openly talking about the past and sharing truths and experiences will do more to contribute to reconciliation and non-repetition than insisting that there is and can only be one truth and that everyone must embrace it.

My thesis is a contemporary realistic novel using alternating perspectives. Footwork explores the modern day-to-day struggles and temptations that face monogamous relationships. How do we negotiate truth within society and expectations that others have of us? What are the deals we make with ourselves and each other in order to live within society? Footwork examines how truth and pain interact. Does truth always have to come forward at the cost of pain? There are three books that represent the contemporary cannon where Footwork could be situated. Infidelity by Stacey May Fowles encompasses alternate perspectives and deals with an affair as the central theme. Love and the Mess We’re In by Stephen Marche focuses on two perspectives of an affair and much of the book uses dialogue with the characters’ inner thoughts also written. Roddy Doyle’s The Snapper concentrates on a dysfunctional family, infidelity and is primarily dialogue. All three novels explore realistic portrayals of truth and infidelity. Footwork goes further by examining the intricacies of how people deal with deception and also forces the reader to have an emotional reaction. One of the ways this emotional reaction is achieved is by Footwork primarily being written in dialogue form. The dialogue encourages the reader to become emotionally invested in the characters’ struggles. The novel does not employ flashbacks, but instead focuses on the immediacy of the characters’ lives to create a story authentic to contemporary relationships. Footwork also uses alternating perspectives as a device to make the reader question which character he/she should be fighting for or against. All the characters have motives for why and how they deceive. The reader understands one character’s perspective only to be challenged by another character’s perspective. All three main characters at the end of Footwork find and/or speak their truth despite the pain that is inflicted.

The notion of absence is pervasive throughout and central to human language and thought. Such thought and talk is often taken quite seriously. Much has been done to motivate treating absences as genuine entities, things as real as the tables and chairs we encounter in everyday life. Unfortunately, not nearly as much attention has been paid to the question of what kinds of things absences could be if indeed there were such things. In this dissertation, I take up the metaphysical question involving the nature of absences, and I also carefully consider the ontological question of whether any kind of case can be made for reifying absences. Along the way, I develop a novel metaphysical account of absences, and examine various considerations from the realms of causation, perception, and truthmaking that putatively support treating absences as bona fide entities. / text

In meinem Titel stecken zwei Thesen. Von "Foucaults Analyse der Wahrheitsproduktion" zu sprechen bedeutet, Wahrheit als etwas Hervorgebrachtes anzunehmen und zugleich zu behaupten, daß diese Hervorbringung durch Analyse zugänglich ist. Beide Thesen scheinen mir einen methodischen Grundzug der Foucaultschen Philosophie zu charakterisieren, woraus sich insbesondere erklärt, warum Foucault historisch gearbeitet hat. Wenn Foucaults Arbeiten zuerst und bis vor kurzem dadurch gewirkt haben, daß sie in der Problemstellung überraschend waren, innovativ in Themen und Herangehensweisen, so könnte ihre künftige Wirkung darin bestehen, einen gangbaren Weg zur Anerkennung des historischen Apriori gezeigt zu haben. Ernst Cassirer schrieb 1932, daß wir das Wort Vernunft kaum mehr gebrauchen könnten, ohne seine Geschichte in uns lebendig werden zu lassen - für Foucault ist diese Einsicht der Schrittmacher seiner Texte. Meine Ausführungen gliedern sich in drei Teile. Zuerst will ich den Ausdruck Wahrheitsproduktion erläutern, sodann die diesbezüglichen Analysemethoden Foucaults, um abzuschließen mit Ausführungen zum historischen Apriori.

What is forgetfulness? How does it show? Is it a part of memory or can it be considered on its own? In the philosophical discourse forgetfulness is limited and the phenomenon is mostly portrayed as a pathological or obscure counterpart of memory. This portraying of forgetfulness can be seen as traditional way of describing it, but there is some philosophers who has spoken of forgetfulness in more fruitful ways. These ways are not to be interpreted as aspirations to decouple forgetfulness from memory, rather they are to be seen as attempts to interpret this relation on another basis. This basis has also led this essay towards an interpretation of forgetfulness' relation to truth. The aim of this essay is thereby to examine forgetfulness as phenomenon and its relation to truth. To approach these subject-matters I've taken Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time to my help. In Memory, History, Forgetting Ricoeur tries to portray forgetfulness as an essential part of human life that's not a deficiency, but nor is it intended to be seen as an incentive to forget. We are rather encouraged to remember, thereof his watchword “the obligation to remember” which is also linked to “the truth status of memory”. Heidegger too considers forgetfulness in Being and Time as an essential part of the human life, or as he writes, of everydayness. Remarkably, Heidegger's translations of the greek words lēthē and its privation alētheia are translatable by him as the words for forgetfulness (concealment) and truth (unconcealment). This opens up a view on forgetfulness and truth as radically different from Ricoeur's and thereof the traditional. The disparity between the two philosophers allows this relation to point beyond the two of them as a possibility and a necessity to make room for forgetfulness as a multifaceted phenomenon in the philosophical discourse.