L'heure de vérité dans "The Confidence-Man" d'Herman Melville

In The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville, the pursuit of truth emerges as an endless self-cancelling process, resting ultimately on the will to believe, thus heralding Charles S. Peirce's and William James's insights. The final scene, the would-be moment of truth, brings confusion to a climax by pointing to baffling paradoxes such as the potential advent of the Savior under the guise of a crook. The paradoxes inherent in such a dubious revelation call into question the usual definition of truth in terms of logical consistency and adequacy to facts.