Philosophie et vérité (1965) - full transcript

"But keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them

is in truth the same as to live without philosophizing", said Descartes.

TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY

PHILOSOPHY AND TRUTH

There is a life of philosophy beyond classes,

a city of philosophers,

who embrace and give food to it.

speak of...

PHILOSOPHY AND TRUTH

Jean Hyppolite: No, I would not employ the word “error.”

It seems to me



too general to speak of an error

at the interior of a philosophical system.

It seems to me, if you like,

difficult, for example,

to take a whole class of philosophers and say:

“There we go! Descartes was mistaken about doubt.”

Or, “Descartes was mistaken about this or that …”

I do not think that

a philosopher is refuted

by another philosopher,

even if they take themselves

to be refuting one another,

I do not think that the refutation of a philosopher

by another philosopher



is something that makes much sense.

Alain Badiou: Do you think that there is philosophical truth?

Are you going to scandalize us here?

Georges Canguilhem: Oh!

I don’t think I would scandalize you personally.

But I would say: there is no philosophical truth.

Philosophy is not the sort of speculation

whose value can be measured

by true or false …

So what is philosophy?

Because we cannot say

that philosophy is true,

this does not mean that it is

a pure language game

or purely gratuitous.

The value of philosophy

is something different from truth value

whereas truth value

is something that is reserved specifically

for scientific knowledge.

Jean Hyppolite: I am in total agreement

with what you said on truth:

“There isn’t …”

Maybe in the past

we could have spoken of a truth in philosophy

and a truth in science

to the degree that the sciences existed.

It is irreversible today

there are no longer plural truths.

to the degree that

there are sciences that are now established.

And there is no contradiction

between what you have said,

that there are only scientific truths,

and what I said

that there is no error,

alas, perhaps, in philosophy.

Georges Canguilhem: Yes, there is no contradiction

but yet it is not

exactly the same thing to say

“there is no error in philosophy”

and to say

that “there is no philosophical truth.”

First of all,

that there is no error in philosophy

flatters all the philosophers!

But

it is very clear that

where is no error

there is no truth either properly speaking.

Nor wandering, in such a way that …

Absolutely agree.

In this way I am also totally persuaded that

there is no contradiction [between us]

and in any case it seems to me that

when I said that

there is no philosophical truth,

I didn’t mean by this that,

in the first place,

a philosopher never has the task

of knowing whether she speaks is truthful

and, secondly, that

a philosopher is, because of this,

estranged from the investigation

of nature, or sense or essence,

or as you say, of truth.

I think that we should differentiate

between truth

and the problem of the essence of truth.

This is not the same sort of thing as scientific truth.

The essence of truth concerns a different register.

This is similar to saying that

“the essence of technology is not technology.”

We should say more exactly

that the essence of truth is a problematic

where we might, as it were, err,

but this is a problem

an authentic problem with respect

to the specialized truths of current sciences.

Scientific truths today are essentially cultural,

they are no longer cosmological.

Einstein was perhaps the last [of his kind].

There could not be a Newton today.

We can no longer write a history of the sky,

a cosmic problem, it is no longer possible.

Ultimately, no physics either.

This point was one that Bachelard already saw clearly.

[Scientific truth] is something cultural,

and the word cosmic is no longer employed by Bachelard

except in what concerns poetry,

never in what concerns truth.

… in the imaginary

and never in what concerns the rational.

A sense of totality only remains in philosophy

and we could not at all evacuate this from our vision.

No, this is the very definition of philosophy.

Exactly.

The more sciences become cultural

and less cosmic, less totalizing,

the more it will need a philosophy

to unite human beings.

Philosophy will be that much more indispensable

while science gets closer to truth,

rigorous and technical truth,

the truth of a special domain.

The more it will need a return

a return to this essence of philosophy.

Absolutely agree.

Paul Ricoeur: [P]hilosophy has always been

a struggle for clarity,

for clarification

and for coherence.

And in this aim its work is a linguistic work

of a particular and privileged form.

It is in reflection and in philosophical speculation

that all the problems of signs and meanings

from other disciplines are contemplated.

The history of philosophy shows us

that philosophy has always been a struggle

against the defects of language,

against poorly posed questions

and traps of language.

Hence philosophy is in a struggle

with its own language.

Michel Foucault: … You said above in your emission

that the ends of philosophy,

well, the goal that it aims at,

was the clarification of language and coherence,

the establishment of a coherence.

And in the course of this emission you spoke of

a fundamental polysemy of language.

Is there not something of a contradiction here?

There is a certain opposition

that recuperates a bit of this apparent opposition

between Canguilhem’s position and that of Hyppolite’s.

Hyppolite said

that there could not have been error in philosophy

and Canguilhem said

that there is only truth in science,

science on the side of coherence,

and philosophy perhaps on the side of polysemy.

Paul Ricoeur: Yes, I think that this contradiction

should be introduced into philosophical work.

On coherence

I would not say that it is a requirement

but a means

that we are obligated to pass through,

a path that is opposed to philosophy

and from which poetry entirely separates us.
a path that is opposed to philosophy

a path that is opposed to philosophy

However this coherence could never be

a formal ideal for philosophy

because what comes to the surface

in the field of philosophy

is first all the inherited languages

and these carry along with them

their piled-up significations,

ordinary language,

the problems inherited

from reflecting on science, on technology.

It seems to me then

that philosophy should be considered

as a space of confrontation

between, on the one hand, the formal task of coherence

and on the other hand, the effort

to get a hold on what is ultimately in question for philosophy,

that is, through this multiplicity of meaning, what is.

That is to say that polysemy would be either on the side

of ontology or on the side of cultural contents

delivered and transmitted by history

and coherence would thus be

on the side of the very form of discourse.

When we spoke before of communication,

this communication with oneself or with others

is the formal map of discourse …

but I do not think that we could reduce

philosophy to its proper formality.

It seems that philosophy brings us

to a more primitive question, which is primordial.

This is the question, say, of Aristotle: What is?

Is it not being itself that is in question for philosophy?

Dina Dreyfus: You have already discussed

this question between yourselves I suppose.

For me,

there are three questions that are tied together

in this problem that we are treating today;

the first question, the first point,

is an apparent contradiction,

one that I would say is very apparent.

This is between Hyppolite’s position,

“there is no error in philosophy”

and Canguilhem’s proposition,

“there is no philosophical truth.”

In any case, Hyppolite’s position

has been interpreted by certain people

as meaning “philosophy is never wrong” …

I think that it is not what it means.

The second question is then

the elucidation of your own conception, Canguilhem.

And finally, the third question

which is in my view underlying the other ones

is the question

of the signification of the philosophical enterprise.

What does it mean to philosophize?

These three points are related.

I don’t think that we could look at one in isolation.

We need to look at them altogether.

We [actually] agree on this seeming contradiction

because I did not sense this difficulty

when I read his [Canguilhem’s] text.

It seemed to me

perfectly complementary to what I said.

There are no truths in the plural sense

and only scientists

working today can be faced with error

and that philosophy cannot be wrong.

Having said this, there are great philosophies

and there are philosophies that do not exist.

I am a bit surprised

by the idea that I was poorly understood.

I said that “there are no philosophical truths”

but I did not mean that

“there are no truths in a philosophy.”

A philosophy can be wrong

if it ends up in paralogisms.

I wanted simply to say

that a philosophical discourse

on what the sciences understand as truths

cannot by itself be called true.

There is no truth of truth.

For example, for Kant

the transcendental analytic

represents a type of truth.

This is no longer true for us today.

It is no longer truth in the sense

that there is no transcendental

which has its own truth today.

I think that Foucault agrees with this.

We are in an anthropology

that has gone beyond this.

We are no longer in a transcendental.

What currently constitutes

the anthropological base on which

we unfortunately reflect on too often

is precisely a transcendental

that aims to be true on a natural level …

… but which cannot be!

… which cannot be.

From the moment when we try

to define an essence of the human being

that might be stated starting from this essence itself

and might at the same time

be the foundation of all possible knowledge

and of all possible limit of knowledge,

we will then actually have two levels in truth:

truth and the truth of truth.

Listen! Listen!

Do we hold or do we not hold

that there is a truth

of the philosophical discourse as such?

That is, could we say "true or false",

that a philosophical system is true or false?

Personally, I do not hold this...

Me too. Unfortunately, there is a will …

You have said, you say, Foucault,

that there is a will towards truth,

there is an aim towards truth.

But even if we aim at truth and we do not reach it,

it is nonetheless the norm of truth

that is in question in this case.

And this is actually what is in question:

Is there a norm of truth for philosophy?

I believe that Canguilhem would not agree.

No. I do not hold that

there is a norm of truth for philosophy.

It seems to me that

there is another type of value for philosophy,

to use a more general term, than that of truth.

Yes, but isn’t this because you started off

by thinking the problem of truth

in terms of norms and criteria?

I wonder if the question of truth isn’t

the last question that we could ask ourselves

rather than one that is pre-given.

It is not that

by starting from an epistemological model

we could then ask the problem of truth

but we should start from another question,

it seems to me so.

It seems to me that

the fundamental question of philosophy is what is.

So if the first question is “what is?”…

the theory of knowledge is secondary

with respect to the theory of being

and science is itself,

secondary with respect to knowledge.

This is even so in what you call value,

should we not call this truth,

if we define truth

as the most complete possible grasp in discourse of what is?

If you allow that there is a problem of value for philosophy,

the field in which you integrate

scientific value and other values,

this is precisely the field

where a problem manifests

that I earlier called truth,

that is, the treatment of being by its discourse,

and then you would never but have a form,

I would not say a deposed one,

for it is a rather privileged form,

but a derivative form of truth in scientific truth.

I might respond to your question

in a certain way, by rejecting it.

I would reject your definition of truth,

the grasping of discourse and what is.

Because precisely for science what is

is defined progressively

as something true independently of all relation

to a supposed being as a term of reference.

It is in the sense that certain philosophies conserve

a realist definition of truth.

In this confrontation of discourse and being

we can hold that, in drawing conclusions

from what we understand today,

in science, in truth,

we can draw the conclusion that philosophy

can, in remaining faithful

to its fundamental project,

define or at least to glimpse its own value,

its own authenticity,

without assuming for itself the concept of truth.

Here it is clearly understood that [philosophy]

treats truth to the degree that it is the space

where the truth of science confronts other values,

whether they be aesthetic or ethical values.

There you go … it might not be perhaps very clear

but I never said anything other than this

during my discussion with Alain Badiou.

Could I simply intervene here in saying

that you said that there is neither object

nor nature, nor cosmos, nor universe, for science.

At the present moment, the sciences,

in their extremely specialized aspects,

establish their truth entirely.

To this degree we reserve this totality for ourselves.

In this we are caught up:

nature, cosmos, human beings.

We are held in this totality.

I have said nothing else.

And so, this relation to totality,

this is the question of truth.

I clearly understand that these historical forms

are contemporaneous

with certain forms of science

rather than with others.

Philosophical statements are also then given to aging

insofar as they are correlated

with a state of the sciences

but the very question is to know

that I am, I am in what is,

and that at the same time I testify to my situation,

I have projects and that it is in this context

that I carry out my projects,
I have projects and that it is in this context

I have projects and that it is in this context

I illuminate something through which a discourse is possible.

This is the network of reality.

Because if we do not call this truth,

but rather call this value,

the relation between different values in play

in our human existence

will find itself entirely cut off

from this question of totality.

In other words, the idea of totality is the way

in which we rationally recuperate

this relation between my being and being.

Yes, it also occurs to me that

I didn’t mention something else to you, my dear Badiou.

When I said that totality is not on the side of nature,

cosmos, the world, that we could find it

and this was precisely the business,

the business proper to philosophy.

That values should be brought

to confront each other

at the very interior of a totality

and that precisely it cannot be presumed

and that you cannot, according to me, give it

the signification of being in the sense of the metaphysicians

that you referred to a moment ago.

Well it seems that I could …

and I am not saying that I am right in this,

since it would be to contradict my own axiom,

it seems to me that I am charged

with conceiving the proper task of the philosopher

as one that is not specifically expressed

in this mode of judgment

in terms of the values true and false.

Would you agree in saying

that it is no longer possible today

to have a philosophical thought

that resembles that of ancient ontology,

that is to say, to a pre-given theory?

Hence since there is no longer theology

there is then also no longer

any pre-existing objective categories for science … - There is no theology...

...there are no pre-existing objective categories for science.

And so I am not surprised to see that

among the auditors there might be those who are surprised

… you said, my dear Badiou, that I caused a scandal.

I do not believe that I could scandalize you.

I am even certain that I will not scandalize you,

but you are among those who were surprised

[by the proposition that I aimed toward].

There are those for whom philosophy

is ultimately a substitute for theology

or those who think that

they now have the means to transform philosophy into science.

… into objective categories that substitute

an active revolutionary thought.

These objective categories are already

the degraded forms of their proper question.

And it is this question that we need to uncover.

Absolutely agree! Absolutely agree!

Now this question is related to truth.

How would you call this relation that we have with this question

if it is not a relation of truth?

If not you would end up with a grouping together

of your values and their confrontation with each other

is simply a cultural aggregation.

Cultures precisely make manifest

certain combinations of values

and culture is the historical place

of the confrontation of values.

However what is [actually] in question when we say,

with Descartes, the Descartes of the cogito, “I am”?

Thus the question that is implied in the question “I am,”

this question here, is not tied to the history of a culture.

It constitutes another dimension.

but, if you will allow, you said to me:
It is perhaps another dimension

but, if you will allow, you said to me:

“What corresponds to the question who am I? to being,

could I not call this truth?”

I would answer:

I cannot say that it is truth as a question.

I might go as far as to call truth a response.

Yes, it is the question of truth.

I didn’t assert anything to the contrary.

The question of truth is perhaps a philosophical question.

But a philosophy, to the degree that

it proposes as an answer to this question,

cannot be ordered

in relation to another philosophy

that gives a different answer,

according to the criterion of true and false.

In other words, personally,

I cannot say that Kant or the philosophy of Kant is true

or that Nietzsche’s is a false philosophy.

There are ridiculous philosophies,

there are rigorous philosophies

but I don’t know of a false philosophy

and as such I don’t know of a true one.

Yes, but we are interested in philosophy

because each one constitutes an internal relation,

in short, between its questions and its answers

and in so doing determining the field,

in short, of its own truth.

It interests us because

we have the conviction or the hope

that through these finite works

the human mind produces an encounter with the same being,

without which we would be in schizophrenia.

But at the same time we don’t have the means

to show that it is the same thing.

This is why all we could say

is that we hope to be in truth

but we cannot assign truth to a philosophical system

produced in the history of our culture.

I would like to bring the question

into perhaps a more elementary

and at the same time more positive terrain.

You have yourselves shown,

in accord with the general inspiration of contemporary epistemology,

that science does not discover the truth

or does not reveal a reality that might precede it

but that it institutes or constitutes,

at times together, the problem of truth

and the effective procedures through which, partially,

this problem can receive a series of ordered responses.

Would you accept then to say

that science is not that

through which human beings discovers truth,

but that science is historically the cultural form

that in some way,

institutes on a terrain of validity,

the problem of the truth.

If you admit that human beings are, in short,

the producer of truth historically

under the form of a scientific practice

then, as in all production,

there is a problem of ends, or telos of production.

And as such I would agree in saying that philosophy

inquires, no doubt,

not on or is not itself a production of truth

but rather it inquires into ends,

on the destination of this particular productive event.

It seems to me that we said,

during the course of our interview,

I think that I said,

at least what I can remember,

that the question of the possibility of science

is not a scientific question.

The why of mathematics

is not a question for the mathematician.

Science constitutes truth, without finality,

without the finality of the truth.

Its finality is the truth,

but there is no finality of truth for science!

And so the interrogation of the finality of truth,

that is to say for example

what we can put into practice [???],

this has always been a fundamental philosophical question,

what we can put into practice [???],

this is precisely philosophical.

But it seems to me that

all modern philosophy since Kant is characterized by the following:

that the knowledge of truth is not sufficient

to totally resolve the philosophical question.

Would you allow me to assert

that the sciences speak a technical language

approaching that of an univocal language

and constitutes in itself truth

in the strict sense of the term?

Yes.

This language has a certain code, that is to say

that it is instituted

from certain expressed conventions

but this language which has a certain code

is itself tied to natural language.

We do not start from data,

we begin from natural language,

which is no doubt spontaneously ontological

in the face of philosophy

which can no longer be so today.

Regardless, natural language is its own proper code

while all the other languages have a code

through their relation with this language.

It thus remains a certain space

in which all the technical problems of truth

which are discovered by science,

which has become more and more cultural and specialized,

encounter one another, a space from where we take off

and where we return.

If I dare to say,

and I hope that philosophy teachers would not think me unworthy,

that true philosophy today is obliged to be a certain vulgarization

in the best sense of the term.

By this I understand that it is obliged to re-translate

what will become untranslatable in the near future

because even the intersections of sciences

are themselves special sciences.

We could not say that biochemistry or computer science,

all these are specializations of intersections.

In this way we have poorly understood your [Canguilhem’s] thought,

we believed that you wanted

to establish truth in the sense of scientism,

like “the future of science” or like Straus,

but not at all, on the contrary, there are truths!

And there is a space

where the essence and existence of truth

sprouts up in its completeness,

from the start to the results.

Thus it seems to me that with respect to your question:

philosophy certainly began science

and this was followed by its taking flight

and one day philosophy under a certain form will end

in order to give birth

to another more indispensable philosophical thought …

But there is something irreversible here,

we cannot remake ontology in the way that Aristotle did,

we can no longer do ontology like Descartes did …

And at the same time, I can perfectly understand

what is in question in the great philosophies of the past

and what these philosophies were looking for.

To put it in your language,

the space from which they start

and the space towards which they aim

is no longer a space that is forbidden or closed to us.

This is why the history of philosophy

is not the history of science.

You said that there is no error in philosophy

but we might also say that there is no progress,

no question is abolished or expires,

while in the history of science, the history of technology,

there really is something that becomes definitively lost.

In relation to the sciences, I can at the same time understand,

for reasons of development of the sciences,

what we call questions of existence.

This same question

was called the question of being in Greek philosophy.

This recognition of the same place of origin

and the same place of destination of philosophical discourse

is hence what permits us to speak of a problem of truth.

PHILOSOPHY: A CENTER OF THE TOTALIZATION OF THE EXPERIENCE OF AN EPOCH

Would you accept us saying

that a philosophy is something

that is a center of the totalization of the experience of an epoch

which is extended across the ambiguity of relations

that brings itself to operate within the framework

of a code or a language

which on the one hand imports the criteria of rigor,

or even coherence, of science.

From this we would have at the same time

a definition of a philosophical project

and, I believe, know the value and the signification of this project

independently from the notion of truth in the strict sense,

or in the way that you have brought it to bear.

We employ on the other hand

a sort of norm with regard to this project,

a finality from which

this project takes up its meaning and its dignity.

At the same time we might perhaps take into account

the ambiguity and difficulties that are produced

locally in the confrontation between science and philosophy

and this may have come to an end today –
to the degree that in different epochs –

and this may have come to an end today –

philosophy could have believed

that this general totalization of the experience of an epoch

in which it was engaged

might be formulated in an analogically rigorous language

in relation to the model or the paradigm

that science provided for it.

Yes, but here at the same time,

we should not let these philosophies

fall into the simple category of cultural products,

products that might serve

as points of historical concentration,

but at the pain of losing

what was in question in these philosophies

and might also serve

as turning points in the history of philosophy.

If we lose the sense of continuity in philosophical questions

and as such of the space

in which these questions are brought about,

we simply end up

doing a sort of cultural history of philosophy

and not a philosophical history of philosophy.

There are two questions in what Badiou said

that puts this relation into question.

To say that philosophy

is the center of the totalization of our epoch
To say that philosophy

is basically to say that – and this was basically my conception –

it is a dialogue with all the philosophers of the past

as if we could isolate this historical relation of philosophy.

Like philosophy, these are things that are quite different

and it follows that there was in our history

when points of novelty were essential at certain moments,

but this does not make

the dialogue with these past philosophers disappear.

It could be that before the birth of philosophy,

with the pre-Socratics,

there would be a certain means

of posing the problem of philosophy and of being

that were tied together because science was not a factor.

And it could be that there was an epoch

where science appeared almost self-sufficient in itself.

There is an epoch of Newton

who brought about certain types of philosophies

and an epoch where there could not be a Newton

and perhaps not even an Einstein.

Here philosophy is again required

to present itself in a different way

without breaking our dialogue with the past.

But in order to think about an epoch

it is also essential to think of its novelty, do you agree?

Yes, I agree, but it seems that

if philosophy at the heart of its own trajectory

should in sum mediate itself through its own history,

this means that it finds in this history

the instruments that are progressively forged

and these constitute the category of totality.

In other words, it seems to me

that it is the category of totality as such

that founds the continuity of philosophical discourse.

This is what I wanted to get away from,

this is a conception of philosophical problems

drawn from a philosophia perennis in which I do not believe.

I believe in a dialogue of philosophers,

in the mediation of philosophers,

and I believe much more in philosophical thinking

such that I do not hold an independent history

of philosophical problems through philosophical figure.

You see, this is what I am against.

In this sense we cannot repeat any philosophy

but we can understand the questions

and I take my question as an issue of comprehending these philosophies.

Exactly.

It may be true that philosophy

is the totalization of the experience of an epoch

in the sense that this experience

contains within it modes of experience

such as science or technology

(naturally, I am not talking about art),

but science and technology
(naturally, I am not talking about art),

(naturally, I am not talking about art),

are activities that disqualify or depreciate their own past,

and this is even something in their essential functioning …

The integration at a given moment in mathematics

such as that of Hilbert

or in physics like that of Einstein,

or a form of art like,

for example, the painting of Picasso,

the integration of the modes of experience precisely [possible]

because certain of these modes

carry with themselves a progress.

This integration can never operate in the same way

even if the intention

or the project of totalization remains identical.

As such if there is no homogeneity of philosophies,

that is, of these attempts at integration

through the relation of their procedures

and as such also of their style and their results,

we cannot then confront one with another

under a certain relation

that might be called, more or less, true

and we return again to my proposition from the other day.

Philosophies are distinguished from each other

not because some are truer than others

but because there are philosophies,

as all three of you have spontaneously said,

that are great and others that are not.

WHAT IS A GREAT PHILOSOPHY?

How do you understand this?

In other words,

is there a criterion for greatness or rigor?

I don’t think that there could be a criterion.

If there were a criterion

you would end up making me say

what I did not want to say up to this moment.

There are perhaps signs

through which we could recognize

a great, a minor, or mediocre philosopher,

as I mentioned a moment ago.

If it is true that philosophy

should be popularized in a non-vulgar way,

as Hyppolite said,

this popularization of different codes

adopted by the science in their path of constitution,

through all the cultural activities of a given epoch,

it seems to me that there is a fundamentally naïve side,

I would even say a popular side,

of philosophy that we tend too often to neglect

and perhaps a great philosophy is a philosophy

that left behind an adjective in popular language.

Plato gave us something “platonic,”

the stoics delivered something “stoic,”

Descartes delivered something “Cartesian,”

Kant something “Kantian” as well as a “categorical imperative.”

In other words, there are philosophers who,

because they totalized the experience of an epoch

and succeeded in disseminating themselves

outside of the philosophical

but in the modes of culture

which would themselves be totalized by another philosophy

and have in this sense a direct impact

on what we could call our common experience,

in our daily lives, our quotidian experience.

As such, it seems to me that this criterion,

this clue, excuse me,

could seem vulgar

but I wonder if it is not

nonetheless philosophically authentic.

Even if we are mistaken

when we say that something is “stoic” or “stoicism,”

even if one is mistaken

in the vulgar acceptance of these adjectives?

One does not need to understand Cleanthes and Chrysippus

and nonetheless know what is stoic and what stoicism is.

It is in any case an attitude

which was promoted and reflected on by a philosopher.

In such a way a great philosophy

is a philosophy that is capable

of being translated in a certain way

into the common language of all.

Simply put, we should also distinguish totalization

which we are all in agreement on

and a totalization,

in order to have a point of impact

which is often a partial totalization

and through the point of impact something almost partial.

In this way the sharp character of philosophical genius –

for we find something here, something that touches genius –

comes into contact with its own epoch,

not through the work of their inheritors,

that is to say, not in what is accumulated

but rather in a deep contact

with what the epoch pronounces in a stammer.

Certainly.

I would not want us to end on such an apparent agreement!

It would be better if we do not agree.

There is a point where I resist your view.

It is a point, if you like,

of bringing us to a sort of a social signification.

It seems to me more important to ask

if a great philosophy

is one that presents the power of coming together

which is the equivalent

with a relation with reality or with being

and I would say that a great philosophy is one

that provides an impression of truth.

This social index is a sort of sign that shows

but which also hides the importance of the stakes.

Oh yes!

We can place the accent on “showing” or “hiding.”

Personally, I would rather place emphasis on the showing.

Yes but I would simply say

that we cannot reduce social influence to a single criteria

which is also a relation of each partial segment of totality

which we called earlier

a space of encounters between philosophies

where the question of truth

or even the truth remains its own question.

This presumption of truth can also found

in what is readily felt in popular sentiments:

that a great philosophy puts into words

what is our relation with each other,

something that varies in history
what is our relation with each other,

what is our relation with each other,

but remains fundamentally the same.
what is our relation with each other,

what is our relation with each other,

I would not say otherwise

and this is why I prefer

to let you say what you just did and allow myself to add

that it is one of general sentiment rather than the social.

I did not want to speak of a social and general criteria,

it is the sign of a certain authenticity.

For myself, I do not want to separate authenticity from truth.

And for me, it seems that my defense

is that I do not see why we employ

the same word and the same concept in two different senses.

But you, Alain Badiou, you are a teacher

and when you define a philosophy

as a center of totalization of the experience in an epoch,

does this afford you some means in the teaching of philosophy?

What do you teach through this title?

In any case we do not teach philosophy

dressed up in this definition.

This would be to give a dogmatic teaching

that actually proceeds from this totalization.

This would be something like the course of Hegel

or a course on scholastic philosophy.

As such in the rigorous sense of the term,

in the basic teaching of philosophy in any case,

we do not philosophize.

So what do we do?

Well I believe that we teach students

the possibility of philosophy.

That is to say that through a series of detours

in the examination of doctrines and texts,

through the examination of concepts

by walking through problems,

we show them what is possible

in the operation of this totalization.

And I would even define the teaching of philosophy

as the teaching of the possibility of philosophy

or the revealing of the possibility of philosophy.

If not there would be no other recourse

than teach a [particular] philosophy

and this is what our teaching aims to guard against.

And from the point of view of teaching

would it be possible to draw some conclusion

on the debate that has been occupying us?

I mean the question of philosophical truth or non-truth.

It is a difficult question on which you do not agree

and I do not believe that we should dissolve this disagreement.

It seems to me that the space of your disagreement

is limited to two agreements which are despite all else essential.

First you all agree that science is one of the places of truth.

In other words, it is fully meaningful

to speak of scientific truth or scientific truths.

And on the other hand you also all agree that

the question of essence of truth

is a properly philosophical question

which does not as such

fall into the field of scientific activity.

Philosophy consists in asking

from a point of view of totalization

what a human being should be,

what relation it has with being in order for the human being

to be something that has truth.

In short, philosophy perhaps does not interrogate the truth

but on the telos of truth

with respect to human existence.

For some this definition supposes that philosophy itself

brings out a sort of fundamental or foundational complicity

with the norm that it aims to investigate

and that it basically carries out in the light of this norm.

For others,

this question supposes on the contrary that philosophy,

in interrogating the space of the truth,

exits from this space and should invent its own forms.

Whether the status of truth

is one that is controllable, actualized, and precise

remains the object of our disagreement;

this is the horizon of our dialogue.

Whether it is an aiming at the true

or an opening towards the true,

this is perhaps what we have asked in our questions

and how we have understood our questions

and have as such formulated our responses.

in the series "TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY"

PHILOSOPHY AND TRUTH