Tibetan Issue:Lie vs Truth

ＴｉｂｅｔａｎＩｓｓｕｅ：ＬｉｅｖｓＴｒｕｔｈＪ－ＹＡＯＳＨＥＮＩａｍａＣｈｉｎｅｓｅＡｍｅｒｉｃａｎ．ＢｏｒｎｉｎＣｈｉｎａ,ｂｕｔｈａｖｉｎｇｓｐｅｎｔ４０ｙｅａｒｓｓｔｕｄｙｉｎｇａｎｄｌｉｖｉｎｇｉｎｔｈｅＵｎｉｔｅｄＳｔａｔｅｓ,Ｉｈａｖｅ...     

Truth as historical recapitulation: the dead of Cape Town’s District One

In this essay, I reflect on the massive and dramatic re-emergence of the dead of Cape Town’s District One in 2003, and its aftermath. I discuss how the resurfacing of these ancestors helps us understand how heritage discourses operate in Cape Town, and how their agency forces us to consider what it means to live in the city during post-apartheid urban renewal. I argue that the agency of the District One dead hinges on their exposure of the internal workings of discourse and the associated disciplinary practices through which we experience Cape Town and its heritage. This story ends ambiguously. I discuss how, following the storage of the District One dead in the Prestwich Ossuary, the gaze on Cape Town was redirected away from the city’s past and towards its future; I explore how their reinterment foreclosed a series of discussions regarding the reconciliation of past events with the present realities of Cape Town. I argue, finally, that truth at District One can be understood as a form of historical recapitulation.     

A Thematic Analysis of “Love” and “Truth” in Caritas in Veritate

Abstract

The encyclical Caritas in veritate uses love as its guiding theological theme, and this innovation exposes the encyclical to critical reflections from some of the greatest theological minds of the mid-twentieth century. This article attempts to revive these critiques in order to analyze Benedict XVI’s use of caritas. Does Benedict’s use of love differ from his predecessors, and is it in any way more adequate? Are the critiques leveled against a social ethic of love merely the product of a hopelessly cynical age, or is love merely a species of interpersonal amity-inapplicable to broader social contexts? Does the fusion of love with the fundamentally contested notion of truth clarify what the Pope means by caritas, or is this conceptual marriage fraught with imprecision and inconsistencies?     

“If in Truth You are Odysseus” – Distrust and Persuasion in the Odyssey†

When Odysseus decides in the course of the Odyssey finally to reveal his true identity to a few chosen characters, he regularly meets with deep scepticism. The depth of this distrust is to no small degree owed to the unusually long duration of Odysseus’ absence and the concomitant loss of familiarity. With the typical skill of a versatile narrator, Homer subtly brings out the nature of the psychological gap in each case and shows the means by which it can eventually be overcome. The paper addresses the salient points and main characteristics of the relevant recognition scenes and ends by suggesting an explanation for the feature that some of Odysseus’ interlocutors tend to suppress his name for some time while others do not.     

The ‘Evidence’ of sex,the ‘Truth’ of gender: Shaping children's bodies

This paper is about the body, specifically a child's body, as a site where identity becomes contested. It is also about a surface or space where we lay claim—a site of vested interest. In April 2004, the Australian Family Court ruled that a 13-year-old child (Alex) had gender identity dysphoria and decided to allow reversible hormonal treatment. The Court ruling produced considerable legal, medical and public reflection over whether these decisions were in Alex's best interests, whether Alex was able to make such a decision at his age, and to assess Alex's competency. These debates also aimed to fix sex and gender through the deployment of a nature and nurture framework. The purpose of this paper, using the example of Alex, is to illustrate the various ways that these claims over a child's body, undermine the possibility for rethinking sex and gender.     

The Reception of ‘That Bigoted Silly Fellow’ James Beattie's Essay on Truth in Britain 1770–1830

This article examines the Scottish philosopher James Beattie's (1735–1803) controversial work of moral philosophy An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770), noted for its pugnacious attack on the sceptical philosophy of David Hume. Usually treated only as an ephemeral success in the early 1770s, the Essay actually had two distinct periods of enormous popularity that account for its contemporary significance in the period between 1770 and 1830. The prominence of the Essay is demonstrated by its widespread positive reception, evinced in both published and private responses, in both England and Scotland, by the high estimation in which it was held within pedagogical circles as an anti-sceptical philosophical primer, and by its continual use as a textbook in both university and dissenting academy logic and moral philosophy classes. In these senses, Beattie's Essay was arguably the most significant work of the Common Sense School of Scottish philosophy.     

Truth or Lies? Selective Memories,Imagings, and Representations of Chief Albert John Luthuli In Recent Political Discourses

Individuals, organizations, and institutions adopt prominent people as political symbols for a variety of reasons. They then produce conflicting memories and images of their chosen symbols. In this article we argue that multiple representations of celebrated public figures should not only beviewed in terms of a choice between ‘truths’ and ‘lies.’ Using the case of Chief Albert Luthuli, the president of the African National Congress from 1952 to 1967, we show that secrets and silences about aspects of his political life would make it difficult for anyone to establish the veracity of competing memories which have been produced around his name since his death in 1967. We argue that many ‘Luthulis’ were produced for different purposes and at different times during this period. We therefore suggest that tounderstand the motives for the making of the various images of Luthuli we need to explore in some depth the contexts in which they were made.     

“In the Truth of Our Political Nature”: Pierre Manent's Defense of Political Reason in Cours familier de philosophie politique

Abstract

Throughout the 1980s, Polish trade unions generated enormous interest among researchers as a vivid example of the power and influence of mass social movements in politics. Following the reemergence of Solidarity and the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, the focus of attention has shifted. Analyses of elite choices and strategies, rather than studies of social groups and organizations, have begun to dominate the scholarship on postcommunist Eastern Europe. Although the new perspectives have made it possible to compare democratization in Poland and other former Marxist-Leninist states with postauthoritarian transitions in Southern Europe and Latin America,¹ they often fail to provide an accurate assessment of the actual significance of the trade union movements and organizations in this process.