788. It is striking that ...

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It is striking that, although Bultmann speaks of "the question of truth" being raised by the plurality of religions and world views, he by and large uses terms other than "true" and "false" in assessing different possibilities of self-understanding -- such terms, e.g., as "right" (German: "legitim"), "legitimate[d]," "inadequate" (German: ''falsch''!) (History and Eschatology: 148 [Geschichte und Eschatologie: 177 f.]). He also drops the phrase, "the question of truth," in the context of discussing world views, etc. in favor of "the question of legitimate self-understanding" (148 [177]).

In GV 2: 278, where he engages in a somewhat more extended assessment of Stoicism than the one he makes in a couple of sentences on 149 [178], he uses yet other comparative terms of assessment, such as "tiefer" and "radikaler," while "wahrer" is still conspicuous by its absence.

3 December 2001