Abstract

The author maintains that "man’s chief purpose in life consists in wanting to know the truth and to experience the real." But in the tradition of Kant and recent continental philosophy, he claims that one can know the real only as constituted by the mind, not as it is in itself. Rauche goes on to conclude, that all truths are perspectival and that the Truth can never be known—though it remains our highest aspiration. The perspectival character of truth is the foundation upon which Rauche develops his position. He claims that truths, as perspectives, are in controversial relations to one another which state of affairs he calls a multiple of broken logos and which reveal a natural reference within the permanent state of crisis of human truth. Rauche puts it as follows: "... if man and his fellowman strive towards the Truth earnestly, they must accept each other’s truths as being complementary to each other." At this point men will become conscious of the fact that they are referred to one another. Thus the controversial relations of man’s truths are a permanent crisis which is the source both of individuality and of community. The experience of the permanent crisis of truths competing with one another is what Rauche means by "actuality." The positive acceptance of the permanent crisis of human truth is the empirical basis of the moral ought. Since human truths are complementary and refer to each other, it is "in their mutual willingness to respect each other’s claims and to see their existential needs and interests in the light of those of the other that [men] may be said to lead an ethical existence." The empirical ground of the moral ought is then seen to be the controversial relation existing between human truths. Rauche rejects in principle any attempt to constitute a theoretical ethics on a rationally conceived principle. Since the moral ought is grounded in the controversial relation existing between human truths, moral principles can be experienced only in our dealings with our fellow man, e.g., in the family and society—wherever the relationship of I-Thou is found. In effect, as in the case of truth, the moral ought appears in the field of actuality; and the crisis in truth is revealed as an ethical ground. The same permanent crisis which is the ground of truth and of the moral ought is regarded by Rauche as the basis of reality. Truth, moral existence, and reality are all conjoined in actuality. The permanent crisis of human truths is an empirical limit which has logical, epistemological, ethical and metaphysical significance. And, Rauche concludes, "... it becomes clear that man’s real existence can never be derived from a rationally conceived essence, but that essence is the way in which man realizes himself by projecting himself into his environment from the peculiar situation in which he happens to find himself, and which induces him to constitute the world in controversy with his fellowman." This is a tightly argued book and Rauche remains consistent with his assumptions throughout. One wishes, however, that the author would examine some of his assumptions. One looks in vain for a single argument which establishes that, e.g., the Truth which is unknowable and yet is the indispensable point to which men strive does in fact exist. If it does not, and Rauche has given us no reason to believe otherwise, then the basis of complementarity of conflicting human truths is lost.—J. J. F.