Rethinking Truth and Rhetoric for the Sake of Ethics: Examining Heidegger’s Conception of Aletheia

• In Event: Stability and Change in Communication Ethics: Truth, Civility and Sovereignty

Abstract

Drawing from the scholarship surrounding Martin Heidegger’s contribution to communication theory, I argue in this essay for an examination of his understanding of truth as world-disclosure or uncovering. I show that the misappropriation of primordial truth into a restricted correspondence theory of truth has consequence for our rhetorical/ethical encounters. Furthermore, in understanding truth as uncovering, we are called forward to a rhetorical humility and responsibility and the space necessary for ethics.

Author

• J.N. Sturgess, Univ of Pittsburgh