Occasional Paper #11:OP:1  
by Fred R. Dallmayr

In dominant strands of modern Western thought, the relation between truth and action or truth and human life has become apocryphal. Under the impact of scientific epistemology, truth tends to be associated entirely with empirical observations or propositional statements. Action, by contrast, is seen as guided by individually or collectively chosen goals which are purely subjective and hence divorced from truth. Viewed against this background, Gandhi's politics and political self-understanding appear enigmatic. Gandhi titled his autobiographical account The Story of My Experiments with Truth and a key category of his self-understanding was satyagraha, usually translated as "truth force" or enactment of truth. The paper seeks to clarify this enigmatic vocabulary. To make some headway, the paper focuses initially on Erik Erikson's well-known study, Gandhi's Truth, where truth and truth force appear as markers of an "epigenetic" life cycle pinpointed by Eriksonian social psychology. After commenting critically on that approach, the paper turns to alternative conceptions or interpretations of gandhi's truth as found in recent literature. By way of conclusion the paper reflects on Gandhi's sources of inspiration and on the continuing importance of Gandhian politics in our time.

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