An innovative ambitious tradition-crossing study drawing on the work of Husserl Heidegger
Horkheimer Adorno and Habermas to propose a new and transformative concept of truth.The idea
of truth is a guiding theme for German continental philosophers from Husserl through Habermas.
In this book Lambert Zuidervaart examines debates surrounding the idea of truth in
twentieth-century German continental philosophy. He argues that the Heideggerian and critical
theory traditions have much in common despite the miscommunication opposition and even
outright hostility that have prevailed between them including significant roots in the
phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Zuidervaart sees the tensions between Heideggerian thought and
critical theory as potentially generative sources for a new approach to the idea of truth. He
argues further that the critical retrieval of insights from German continental philosophy can
shed light on current debates in analytic truth theory.Zuidervaart structures his account
around three issues: the distinction between propositional truth and truth that is more than
propositional (which he calls existential truth) the relationship between propositional truth
and the discursive justification of propositional truth claims framed in analytic philosophy
by debates between epistemic and nonepistemic conceptions of truth and the relationship
between propositional truth and the objectivity of knowledge often presented in analytic
philosophy as a conflict between realists and antirealists over the relation between truth
bearers and truth makers. In an innovative and ambitious argument drawing on the work of
Husserl Heidegger Horkheimer Adorno and Habermas Zuidervaart proposes a new and
transformative conception of truth.
