Will-to-Truth

This chapter is an existential and psychosocial exploration and discussion of the links and tensions between will-to-power and will-to-truth, constitutive for both a hermeneutic of self and a hermeneutic of ethics. The participants were all invited to tell the story of their lives—to recall those experiences and events that held particular importance for them. However, the references to personal or inner life, and the degree of self-examination, were unevenly distributed among the narrators. The different degrees to which the professionals took their own selves into consideration, including self-reflections regarding relating to vulnerable others in an asymmetric relationship and by means of coercive measures, are explored through a consideration of existential and contextual premises. Part of the reason for the thoughtlessness of self seemed to be the mindfulness of others—the conscious and unconscious struggle for recognition from those who could secure the professional’s reputation. In addition, the chapter explores and discusses how the capacity for truth may be impacted by “selective memory”, and “denial of death”, and how tensions between “deep and common memory” can engender “failures in mutuality”.