Actually I think I am more confident on his failure modes than I am on his working definition of truth itself. "it is that which exceeds our experience and prior understanding" okay... isn't that just "anything we haven't experienced or understood before" i.e. something new. I'm not sure how that is helpful.
I was in two minds about throwing Badiou in so early, but several of the early Stranger Travellers are from a philosophy background, and I felt I ought to throw in something to represent the deep end(!). I do not know if I can condense what is, after all, Badiou's life's work without betraying it, but I will suggest this way of looking at it:
To render what is true in human thought means to encode it in our symbols, our words, and imagery. Some echo of the true situation can be captured in such a translation, but there is always an excess - there are always things that cannot be accurately captured in any given static understanding. Because of this, the true situation always exceeds any singular understanding we may make of it. When we become aware of that excess, the truth 'breaks through' and we begin the process of understanding it anew.
So if I understand it Badiou's point is that truth is a process of refining our experience of a situation towards whatever may be the best possible repesentation of that situation we are capable of and that recognition both of the gap and its change is important?
Aye, although that makes it sound like smooth sailing. Badiou warns us, as in the other thread, that when we glimpse the true situation it can completely upend our world. Once it has done so, keeping hold of that glimpse of the truth begins a process that requires our commitment - and acceptance of the risks entailed. It is often easier to simply back away... and this is what he names 'betrayal'.
Thanks for engaging with these ideas! Greatly appreciated.
Okay, I think I grok Badiou's the failure modes: being decieved, becoming distracted, perverting "truth" (e.g. turning it into dogma). Does Badiou offer any help in avoiding or overcoming these failure modes beyond "don't do that"?
The key for Badiou is that truth is experienced as a process and not a proposition, it is a process that makes us a subject of truth. As such, to be exposed to truth in this way entails breaking with the prevailing order:
"To belong to the situation is everyone's natural destiny, but to belong to the composition of a subject of truth concerns a particular route, a sustained break, and it is very difficult to know how this composition is to be superimposed upon or combined with the simple perseverance-of-self."
Woah that's a paragraph not to be taken lightly. I am struggling with that one. I think this is getting at the difference between our current truth-experience and (I suppose this has to exist to be something towards which one can reach) and other, purer truth of the situation, that we creep towards through these "truth breakthrough" moments but that this is conflated with how our-truth and our-identity are connected together (which presumably makes it harder to make progress as our identity is somehow often more important to us than truth). Or something.
Aye. Badiou warns us here that the revelation of truth can bring upon a crisis. There is great wisdom in this warning, and as you say - it is not to be taken lightly.
Actually I think I am more confident on his failure modes than I am on his working definition of truth itself. "it is that which exceeds our experience and prior understanding" okay... isn't that just "anything we haven't experienced or understood before" i.e. something new. I'm not sure how that is helpful.
I was in two minds about throwing Badiou in so early, but several of the early Stranger Travellers are from a philosophy background, and I felt I ought to throw in something to represent the deep end(!). I do not know if I can condense what is, after all, Badiou's life's work without betraying it, but I will suggest this way of looking at it:
To render what is true in human thought means to encode it in our symbols, our words, and imagery. Some echo of the true situation can be captured in such a translation, but there is always an excess - there are always things that cannot be accurately captured in any given static understanding. Because of this, the true situation always exceeds any singular understanding we may make of it. When we become aware of that excess, the truth 'breaks through' and we begin the process of understanding it anew.
So if I understand it Badiou's point is that truth is a process of refining our experience of a situation towards whatever may be the best possible repesentation of that situation we are capable of and that recognition both of the gap and its change is important?
Aye, although that makes it sound like smooth sailing. Badiou warns us, as in the other thread, that when we glimpse the true situation it can completely upend our world. Once it has done so, keeping hold of that glimpse of the truth begins a process that requires our commitment - and acceptance of the risks entailed. It is often easier to simply back away... and this is what he names 'betrayal'.
Thanks for engaging with these ideas! Greatly appreciated.
Okay, I think I grok Badiou's the failure modes: being decieved, becoming distracted, perverting "truth" (e.g. turning it into dogma). Does Badiou offer any help in avoiding or overcoming these failure modes beyond "don't do that"?
The key for Badiou is that truth is experienced as a process and not a proposition, it is a process that makes us a subject of truth. As such, to be exposed to truth in this way entails breaking with the prevailing order:
"To belong to the situation is everyone's natural destiny, but to belong to the composition of a subject of truth concerns a particular route, a sustained break, and it is very difficult to know how this composition is to be superimposed upon or combined with the simple perseverance-of-self."
More in the other reply.
Woah that's a paragraph not to be taken lightly. I am struggling with that one. I think this is getting at the difference between our current truth-experience and (I suppose this has to exist to be something towards which one can reach) and other, purer truth of the situation, that we creep towards through these "truth breakthrough" moments but that this is conflated with how our-truth and our-identity are connected together (which presumably makes it harder to make progress as our identity is somehow often more important to us than truth). Or something.
Aye. Badiou warns us here that the revelation of truth can bring upon a crisis. There is great wisdom in this warning, and as you say - it is not to be taken lightly.