Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka
Pages 7-15
DOI: 10.5840/cultura20074115
ABSTRACT
Although the definition of truth first proposed by Aristotle and maintained as the reference point for all succeeding views was situated in the intellective sphere of rationality/logos in the human unfolding, its validity, that is, the validity of the proposition fram ing it, and its verification reaches far below the logical sphere of a statement. Truth’s validity reverberates down from the intellective sphere of the mind’s rationality into the spheres of sense that sustain it, within the multiple spheres of the network, of sense in\which; the logos of life projects its manifestation] through living beings and whole world of life. To grasp the full significance of notions of truth we cannot stop at any one perspective or sphere, whether the cognitive, intertextual, or pragmatic. To understand what “truth” means we should elucidate it in its origin and nature, that is, in its generative significance for the entire expanse of life and in its role within the logoic schema of its dynamic manifesta tion. I propose to outline this in a succinct way in what follows. Truth will emerge as a crucial logoic device, as the regulative vortex for the ontopoietic balancing out of life’s forces in their constructive course. I The Roots of Truth: The Natural “Reality” of Life At the roots of the transcendental constitution of the lifeworld, Husserl saw the basic belief of the human being — belief in the natural world of life — as being prior to all the intentional differentiations of this world itself. I corroborate this notion of a basic existential trust in the constancy of the world of life by shifting the focus from the world to life. I see it as our basic trust in the constancy of life and of ourselves incorporating it. With this trust our entire life progresses from day to