Dialectics It would be a complete misunderstanding of the dialectical relationship between Knowledge and Truth if this relationship were viewed as a progressive approximation whereby the subject, driven by the operation of Truth, passes from one figure of knowledge (having proved its ‘falsity’, its insufficiency) to another that is much closer to the Truth, etc., until a final agreement between knowledge and Truth is achieved in the form of Absolute Knowledge. From this perspective, Truth is conceived of as a substantial entity, an In-Itself, and the dialectical process is reduced to a simple, asymptotic movement, a progressive approximation to the Truth, in the sense of Victor Hugo’s famous saying: ‘Science is an asymptote of Truth. It ever approaches but never touches it.’ On the contrary, the Hegelian coincidence of the movement toward truth with truth itself implies that THERE ALREADY HAS BEEN CONTACT WITH THE TRUTH: truth itself must change with the changing of knowledge, which is to say that, once knowledge no longer corresponds to truth, we must not merely adjust knowledge accordingly but rather transform both poles – the insufficiency of knowledge, its lack apropos of the truth, radically indicates a lack, a non-achievement at the heart of truth itself. … Take an example from Adorno: today, it is impossible to find a single definition of society; it is always a matter of a multitude of definitions that are more or less contradictory, even exclusive (for example, on the one hand there are those who conceive of society as an organic Whole that transcends particular individuals, and on the other those who conceive of society as a relationship between atomized individuals – ‘organicism’ versus ‘individualism’). At first glance, these contradictions would seem to block any knowledge of society ‘in itself, so that whoever presupposes society as a ‘thing in itself ‘can only approach it by way of a multitude of partial, relative conceptions that are incapable of grasping it. The dialectical turn takes place when this very contradiction becomes the answer: the different definitions of society do not function as an obstacle, but are inherent to the ‘thing itself; they become indicators of actual social contradictions – the antagonism between society as an organic Whole as opposed to atomized individuals is not simply gnoseological; IT IS THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTAGONISM WHICH CONSTITUTES THE VERY THING THAT ONE WANTS TO COMPREHEND. Here is the fundamental wager of the Hegelian strategy: ‘inappropriateness as such’ (in our case, that of opposing definitions) ‘gives away the secret’ [‘l’inappropriation comme telle fait tomber le secret’] – whatever presents itself initially as an obstacle becomes, in the dialectical turn, the very proof that we have made contact with the truth. We are thus thrust into the thing by that which appears to obscure it, that which suggests that ‘the thing itself ‘is hidden, constituted around some lack. Slavoj Žižek, INTERROGATING THE REAL, (Editorial material, selection and translation, Rex Butler and Scott Stephens), (THIS SELECTION APPEARED IN LE PLUS SUBLIME DES HYSTÉRIQUES – HEGEL PASSE, PARIS, LE POINT HORS LIGNE, 1988,) Continuum, 2005, pp.38-9
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 17:14:33 +0000
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