Full Description
The claim of this book is that truth is a matter of language games and practical achievements: it is a "member phenomenon". To document this statement, it proceeds to the investigation of instances of truth-related practices in various Arab contexts. Bearing on the constitution of actions and events, on what is factual or objective, on predictability, consequentiality, intentionality, causality, and on the many ways people orient to them, such a varied set of questions appears thoroughly moral. The praxeological respecification this book undertakes leads to important considerations regarding the question of morality in ordinary reasoning, and the categories and categorizations on which that morality is based: moral values are publicly available; morality has a modal logic; moral values and conventions have an open texture; objectivity is a practical achievement carried out by members of society; the moral order is an omnipresent, constitutive characteristic of social practice.
Contents
1. Foreword; 2. Introduction; 3. Chapter 1. Learning the truth: Memorizing the Koran in an Egyptian kuttab*; 4. Chapter 2. The context of truth practices: Legislating the Shari'a at the shopfloor level*; 5. Chapter 3. Telling the truth: The judge and the law in family matters; 6. Chapter 4. The truth about oneself: Three Arab channels and their "self-presentation"; 7. Chapter 5. Speaking the truth: Advocacy video clips against terror*; 8. Chapter 6. Narratives of truth: Documenting the mind in a psychiatric hospital; 9. Conclusion. Truth: A matter of language game and practical achievement; 10. Bibliography; 11. Index
