Being and Truth

by Thomas Langan

In his earlier volume, Tradition and Authenticity in the Search for Ecumenic Wisdom, Thomas Langan explored the distinctive kinds of truth handed on by explicit traditions and raised the question of integrating these many diverse truth claims into a responsible, meaningful vision of reality. In Being and Truth, the author lays a foundation for this a theory of knowledge and a theory of being that can find a place for all these differing realities. Although experience is always interpreted in the light of our traditions, Being and Truth shows that this does not preclude real access to persons, things, and their interrelationships.
Balancing the realities of subjectivism with the demands of objective form and structure, giving both the relatively permanent and the ephemeral their due, is at every moment delicate. The "common sense" at the core of each person's "natural faith" must serve as a guide - yet neither of these is a simple notion. Langan unabashedly calls on his own wide-ranging experience of the lived world to illustrate this dialectic. Students and scholars of political philosophy, intellectual history, and theology will benefit from this rich and insightful text, which integrates historicity without undermining the possibility of attaining lasting truth.

385 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1996