To hell with the truth!

Presented by Géraldine Muhlmann, philosopher
With David Lapoujade, philosopher
Camille Riquier, philosopher

Can we stop caring about the truth, consider it useless or obsolete, and toss it in the bin? On the face of it, this would be madness: we would condemn ourselves to live in a world of darkness where nothing is clear, where everything is relative, a world of illusions and mistakes, of suspicion, lies and deceit, of trickery, pretence and mystification. Every word would be tainted with doubt: political discourse would be promotional, scientific discourse would be silver-tongued sales pitching, moral discourse would be wishful thinking, and, with all confidence lost, we would no longer even believe that road signs point in the right direction; a trip to Honfleur would end up in Vierzon. So we should think that banishing the truth to the fires of hell does not have such an expeditious and radical meaning: the grip of truth would be too strong, and we would want to break free from it somewhat to regain some freedom of action, perhaps towards the plausible, the probable, the uncertain, even error - which, as we know, has many virtues, including that of advancing knowledge through correction. If truth has the ugly face of dogmatism, it would indeed be useful to lighten it up or tone down its arrogance, politely pointing out that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that it can depend on points of view, historical contexts, cultures, ideologies, power relations, efficiency, the construction of language, and even the subjectivity of individuals.
It is not certain that, locked in its steel hardness and certainty, it will be shaken and open itself up to criticism, just as it is not certain that this criticism if it is not sufficiently cautious and nuanced, will be able to avoid falling into the absurdity of throwing the baby out with the bathwater or exercising itself on the foggy terrain of ‘everything is the same’.