Leiden University Student Repository

Heeren, Matthijs (2012)

The 'truth'

Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)

A shared understanding of the world may seem to be absolutely 'true', because empirical experience may confirm its legitimacy. I illustrate and argue that such belief in an 'all encompassing truth' requires a deceptive illusion that the collective of individuals together uphold and by which each individual perpetuates her of his own deception and that of the others. This thesis discusses the results of an in depth experience with the construction of what is the 'truth' in the experience of participants in a 'cult'. This argument is then used to reflect on the origins of the life world that may underlie any certainty that academic conceptions of the world conjure up.

truth

illusion

appropriation

ethos

world view

power

individual

collective

affect

Author

Heeren, Matthijs

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Supervisors

Maeckelbergh, Marianne

ECTS Credits

30

Language

en