Historical Truth and the Truthfulness of Historians

2020 ◽  
pp. 240-273
Author(s):  
Martin Jay
Keyword(s):  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship

Although philosophers and theologians have speculated on the ability of timeless, ontological truth to manifest itself in the flux of history, most working historians have focused on epistemological questions concerning the relationship between history as what actually happened and history as its present representation. Two extreme positions—naïve positivism and radical constructivism—have proven equally untenable. This chapter examines three alternatives: falsificationism, the new experientialism, and institutional justificationism. It defends the last of these, which posits a self-reflective community of competence, morally obliged to be truthful and engaged in an endless quest for plausible narratives and compelling explanations of past occurrences, as the most persuasive answer to skepticism about historical truth.

Le Benevole. Riflessioni su storia e letteratura

2009 ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
European Countries ◽  
History And Literature ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Phase ◽  
Looking Back

- In Les Bienveillantes. Reflections on History and Literature Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat discusses the relationship between history and literature on the Shoah, in particular through an analysis of Jonathan Littells highly successful novel, published initially in France and translated in other European countries. Looking back at earlier books on the same theme that failed to attract any attention, he concludes that Littells novel marks a new phase, with the Shoah seen through the person of the «executioner». Morbid or voyeuristic insistence on violence, like instrumental use of music or Greek tragedy, risks reducing the Shoah yet again to a commonplace, without respect for the historical truth and hence for the memory of the victims.Key words: Literature, Nazism, Shoah, witnesses.Parole chiave: Letteratura, nazismo, Shoah, testimoni.

Da’at

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-106
Author(s):  
Avraham Yizhak
Keyword(s):  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Ultimate Truth ◽  
Cognitive Dimension ◽  
Spiritual Quest ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
Religious System ◽  
System P ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter presents the teachings of a Hasidic teacher, Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl. The chapter focuses attention on the notion of da'at, knowledge or consciousness, as it appears in Rabbi Menahem Nahum's classic Me'or einayim. The chapter considers it the ultimate goal of the mystical life. Focusing on da'at provides a particular approach to the issue of religious truth. In the chapter, religious truth is viewed from the subjective and cognitive dimension, in terms of human consciousness and its ability to enter the reality of God. It explores the relationship between this cognitive and the conscious dimension of approach to God and the more objective dimensions of religion in relation to the notion of truth. The chapter offers a turn to the subjective, the experiential, and the conscious as a means of safeguarding the foundations of truth, grounded in God, and the quest for da'at. One might almost discern a parallel between the appeal to da'at on metaphysical, cognitive, and mystical grounds and Krajewski's appeal to a kernel of historical truth in tradition. However, da'at is more than a kernel. In fact, da'at is the essence, the goal, and what counts most in the spiritual quest. Getting to the heart of things, therefore, allows us to rebalance perspective and to affirm that which matters most in religion, its ultimate truth, despite the weakening of the historical and other foundations of the religious system.

Classical History between Epic and Rhetoric

Why History? ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 16-44
Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham
Keyword(s):  
Historical Change ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Classical Scholarship ◽  
Elementary Type ◽  
Classical Models ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Classical History

This chapter establishes the foundations on which the rest of the book is built since post-classical scholarship largely develops from classical models or is shaped by its reaction against those models. The chapter addresses a series of conceptual issues that have recurring relevance, including: differing conceptions of the nature of historical truth; the relationship between History and ethnography; the relationship between rhetoric and historianship; the relationship between philosophy, poetry, and History; and the relationship between ‘useful’ and ‘pleasurable’ Histories. In a more empirical vein the chapter discusses the relationship between Greek and Roman historianship and accounts for different tendencies in the development of historiography in each culture—tendencies like a greater or lesser interest in the outside world, and a greater or lesser interest in individuals as opposed to power structures or the study of society and culture. The question of the consciousness of qualitative historical change is also discussed in the case of a number of historians. In the 900 or so years of historianship covered in this chapter no rationale for History that is present at or near the outset was ruled out by the end, though of course many avenues of possibility were more fully explored. It is more than coincidence that the survey opens and closes with species of History as Identity, beginning with the most elementary type of that genre: genealogy.

Unfree Verse: John Wilkinson's The Speaking Twins

Paragraph ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Specific Resistance ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship

This essay revisits the relationship between philosophy and poetry. It argues that a crucial term, ‘verse’, is often missing from discussion of that relationship. The broader term, ‘poetry’, is so difficult to define that it offers insufficient specific resistance to large philosophical schemas. The question is explored here through an analysis of the prosodic microstructures in John Wilkinson's The Speaking Twins. I conclude that Wilkinson's poem is an instance of ‘unfree verse’ (in a sense which I define in the essay) and that the poem's verse technique is also the site of its historical truth-content.

History and Rhetoric in Dionysius of Halicarnassus

1993 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Fox
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Education ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between historical truth and rhetorical education in theAntiquitates Romanaeof Dionysius of Halicarnassus. These two concerns dominate Dionysius' output, and have provided fuel for a long tradition of adverse criticism. Schwartz'sREarticle set the standard for a series of dismissive accounts; his premise is that by choosing a period of such remote history, Dionysius can fulfil his desire to make history the servant of rhetorical display, adding, with scorn, that Dionysius' love of the Romans disqualifies him from being a real Greek. Palm, still using Schwartz over fifty years later, is so convinced that Dionysius cannot have believed what he was writing that he ascribes the meticulously executed proof that the Romans were Greeks to ‘paradoxe Effekte’, in which anyone writing a rhetorical exercise of this kind would be careful to indulge. Polemic has recently waned, although by far the most common use of Dionysius' history is as a source for antiquarian anecdote or the lost annalistic tradition, often to highlight the originality of Livy. The recently published lectures of Gabba will do much to redress the balance, and are the first concerted attempt at harmonizing the details of Dionysius' rhetorical theory with his history.

scholarly journals The Constructivist Approach: Radical and Social Constructivism in the Relationship by Using the Implementation Career Level on the Vocational Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haryadi Haryadi ◽  
Iskandar Iskandar ◽  
Dicky Nofriansyah
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Vocational Education ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Individual Knowledge ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Vocational education is oriented to the secondary educational in which focusing on the development of the student in order to be ready to work professionally and ready to improve their self-potential, in particular, field work. The aim of this paper is to analyze the constructivist approach to vocational education, the relationship between radical and social constructivist and the implementation of the career level on the voced. The result of this discussion to explain the relationship between radical constructivism and social constructivism is viewed the strong abilities. Radical constructivism related the construction mental structure and meaning by individual. After studying, the social constructivism is more focused the social interaction than the individual knowledge construction, the stressing of construction is shown about the meaning in the social interaction activities. Implementation would be successful about the career in the vocational education and needed the educators to make an active facilitator, particularly to guide the students by question with their assumptions and trained the students by reconstructing the new meaning of knowledge, so that students can be a good career.

scholarly journals Alt er sandt!

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (81) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
David Hasberg Zirak-Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Play ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship

David Hasberg Zirak-Schmidt: “All is true! Memory, Oblivion and History in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII” In this article I examine the dialectic of memory and oblivion in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s history play Henry VIII. Taking off from a close reading of the ambivalent apotheosis of Catherine of Aragon, the article argues that Henry VIII questions the relationship between fiction and historical truth. Through this process, I argue, that the play self-consciously reflects on the theater’s role and ability as a transmitter of historical knowledge and truth.

The Case of Carlo Calà and Giovanni Calà: Historical Truth and Doctrinal Orthodoxy in post-Reformation Italy

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-463
Author(s):  
Stefania Tutino
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Complex Investigation ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
Historical Authenticity ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Joachim Of Fiore

In the second half of the 1650s, Carlo Calà, Duke of Diano and president of the Regia Camera della Sommaria in Naples, began a well-orchestrated campaign to convince the ecclesiastical authorities to canonize a mysterious and hitherto unknown ancestor, Giovanni Calà. Said to have lived between the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, Giovanni Calà purpotedly served the Holy Roman Emperor Henry vi as one of his most trusted army captains, aiding the Emperor in conquering southern Italy before eventually becoming a hermit and follower of the Calabrian mystic Joachim of Fiore, whose supernatural and prophetic power he allegedly shared. Carlo Calà’s demands originated a long and complex investigation, which in turn provoked a heated debate within the Roman Curia on how to establish historical authenticity while defending theological dogmas. The case of Carlo Calà and Giovanni Calà opens a unique window on the changing and complex attitudes of post-Reformation Catholicism concerning the relationship between historical truth, philological criticism, and doctrinal orthodoxy. The implications of the debates initiated by this case are still thought-provoking and relevant today.

scholarly journals Kesatuan dan Perbedaan dalam Gereja Perdana

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-205
Author(s):  
Victor Christianto
Keyword(s):  
Church History ◽  
Interfaith Dialogue ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
Preliminary Research ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Proper Response

Two interesting questions in relation to the Early Church history are the extent of unity or diversity among Peter, James, and Paul; and also how Paul's thoughts have shaped the direction of the Church in later periods. Answers to these questions will be very helpful in order that we can give a proper response to "Paulinism", an accusation which some non-Christian thinkers often have towards Christians (c.f. Tom Jacobs). Such an accusation (Paulinism) basically says that Christianity is a religion created by St. Paul, not Jesus Christ. In order to respond to such an accusation, in this article the writer will describe: what was the historical truth concerning relation between St. Paul and the Jerusalem Church generally, and especially the relation between St. Paul and James the brother of Jesus. It will be shown that the relationship between St. Paul and the Jerusalem Church did not indicate separation or conflict, but unity in diversity. This article is written with a purpose to open a new constructive way of interfaith dialogue; nonetheless, this is just preliminary research, therefore, this article may not give the last word or a definitive answer to the problems posed above.

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