The question if there is one truth or many truths is over my head. That’s what I like about Laruelle.
At least for me, he makes it that I question many things I thought to be true.
I’m curious to dive deeper in Laruelle’s thinking.
Evolved out of my rudimentary understanding of François Laruelle, I am now in a kind of condition of non-truth, a condition which accepts that it is not possible to grasp the truth. The truth of the Real is inaccessible and indivisible.
Beware of truth-tellers.
Der Unbuddhist 
Yes. I understand this. I have a very visceral aversion to anyone peddling me the truth. I very often tell them as much. Beware when you do that directly, because often they become very aggressive with their „truth“ and very disturbing in their attempts to „save“ you. It seems to me that the aggression I have experienced during encounters like this are a result of the „saver“ actually trying to save themselves and trying desperately to mitigate their own fear of impermanence, change, nihilism, and ultimately death. My party line, „No thank you, I am not interested in being saved.“ I don’t mind muddling through, as you suggest, not holding tightly to any truth, and even being willing to admit that my own subtle truths, ideologies, may be just as amorphous. Warning: this does not lead to bliss, peace, or happiness in my experience.
I also think that it is a big fear that generates the wish to determine an absolute safe truth. Every truth we dearly hold to can be destroyed immediately. There is no safe, lauded land.
This could be the mantra of a new sutra derived from the heart sutra. The heart sutra is one of the great truth crashers wo/man-in-person created. Basically it says „subtract, subtract, subtract and see what comes“. This is the contemplation to be done. While that is being done, not to be distracted by the great truth tellers, one recites from time to time the above mantra. It works as an exorcism just like the old version of the heart sutra.
Non-Buddhism: The Pointing Out Instruction Of Seeing into the Non-Nature of the Real
No thank you, I am not interested in being saved.
Every truth we dearly hold to can be destroyed immediately
I don’t mind muddling through
Not holding tightly to any truth
There is no safe lauded land.
Subtract, subtract, subtract and see what comes
One recites from time to time the above mantra
This does not lead to bliss, peace, or happiness
It is a big fear that generates the wish
To determine an absolute safe truth.
There is no safe, lauded land.
Subtract, subtract, subtract and see what comes
Beware of truth-tellers
My own subtle truths, ideologies
May be just as amorphous
The truth of the Real is inaccessible and indivisible.
There is no safe, lauded land.
Subtract, subtract, subtract and see what comes
One recites from time to time the above mantra.
Hallo,
Interessante Frage: Gibt es eine Wahrheit oder gibt es keine? Wenn viele verschiedene Antworten zu einer Frage wahr sein können,so gibt es keine Antwort auf diese Frage. Mir fiel neulich auf, dass der Streit zwischen Chomsky und Zizek auf dieser Frage beruht. Chomsky meint dass es ganz einfache Wahrheiten gibt, die unmittelbar ohne weitere theoretische Begründung einsichtig sind, z.B. dass wir in einer Klassengesellschaft leben. Zizek hingegen zaubert zu jeder Wahrheit eine Gegenwahrheit aus dem Hut. Irgendwie haben beide Recht aber wo das übergreifende Konzept, das diesen Widerspruch erklärt ?
Gruss, Benedikt
Man könnte zum Thema Wahrheit so viel sagen, schreiben, weitere endlose Texte generieren und sich verlieren in akademischen, nicht-akademischen und sonstigen Produktionen konzeptioneller TauschWertWahrheiten, dass man darüber vergässe, zu essen, zu trinken, zu feiern, zu trauern, zu sterben –: Mein „Handwörterbuch Philosophie“ gibt die Korrespondenztheorie der Wahrheit, die semantische Theorie der Wahrheit, die Evidenztheorie, die Kohärenztheorie, die Konsenstheorie der Wahrheit und die pragmatisch-empirische Wahrheitstheorie. Was will man mehr? Additionally we have Nagarjuna’s two truths, the anarchistic laughter of the atiyoga hermit, and the New Gelug Truth of Happiness as the pursuit of life (totally compatible to the USA/NSA/Coca Cola Hegemony). We have masses of people drowning in the Mediterranean See, the slaughtered ones, the hungry ones, those without good water (2 billions), the total mess of a civilization gone astray. We have the abysmal crimes of the 20th century, the gulags, the concentration camps, the Armenians, the Hutu and Tutsi, the Herero in German South-West Afrika. We have the US$ 14.3 trillion spend each year for war, police, crime, death, catastrophe, endless terror of the Good against the Bad and the Bad against the Good. We know not much. History is a hodge podge which becomes a clear structure only in hindsight. We all die and finally, never mind, in the end, all of human life will have amounted to an infinitesimal flash of dull, vaporous light, wholly inconsequential to the cosmic whole. Eine Wahrheit die einem jede Last nimmt.
Matthias (#6),
wir leben in einer ver-rückten Welt. Wie du bereits aufzählst: Ertrinkende, Abgeschlachtete, Verdurstende, Hungernde, Todeslager, Kapitalismus-Todesmaschinerie usw…
Lange Zeit war es für mich existeniell wichtig, auf die ‚grossen‘ Fragen eine Antwort zu finden. Warum gerade ich? Warum gibt es Leid? Was passiert nach dem Tod? Ich erspare weitere Aufzählungen. Hoffnung auf Beantwortung suchte ich in der Religion, im Buddhismus, in der Wissenschaft.
Und? Es gibt eine Grenze, die uns den Zugang zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen verstellt. Sie scheint unüberwindbar zu sein. Wie sehr wir uns auch anstrengen; wir werden solche Fragen nicht ultimativ beantworten können. Auch nicht jene, ob am Ende alles menschliche Leben einem winzigen Aufblitzen von dümmlichem, dunstigem Licht, welches im Gesamtkosmischen völlig bedeutungslos ist, gleichkommt.
Die ultimative Subtraktion für mich persönlich ist die Akzeptanz, dass es für mich kein Wissen von endgültigen Wahrheiten geben kann. Was ich vorläufig wissen kann ist was ich sehe: Ertrinkende, Abgeschlachtete, Verdurstende, Hungernde, Todeslager, Kapitalismus-Todesmaschinerie usw…
Alles andere ist unnötiger Ballast für mich. Es wirkt sehr befreiend, sich darauf zu subtrahieren.
Hat das Leben einen Sinn? Gibt es ein Leben nach dem Tod? Scheiss drauf.
Subtract, subtract, subtract yourself to reach your cosmic minimality.
The ultimate subtraction for me personally is the acceptance that there can be no knowledge of definitive truths
Everything else is unnecessary ballast for me. It is very liberating to subtract it.
Subtract, subtract, subtract yourself to reach your cosmic minimality.
I hope I have translated your meaning in the above. I think there is something very strong here in what you say . What are we left with when we subtract the unnecessary ballast? Just the individual/collective situation in which we find ourselves, but without the psychological and social drain on human energy that comes with all forms of ideological and philosophical absolutism. We are left simply with things to do—but without the compulsion imposed from above and all that entails.
The risk is, of course, that when we throw into the sea the “unnecessary ballast” we just drift without a rudder and in a fog of depression and meaningless. —what some call nihilism. I think that danger is exaggerated. And in any case we must take the risk if only because the “I have the absolute truth and ultimate answer way of being” has been proven to be an even greater danger for human beings. We can learn to live in- the- ordinary- of- the- lived, paradoxidly alone and accompanied, without direction and confident at the same time. We need not be caught by these philosophical dichotomies. Nor need we give up theoretical enquiry . We need instead to find strong connections between our thinking and our personal situation, which is always at the same time collective or relational, but in a very concrete way.
Patrick,
good translation! I very much like your phrase that ‚we are left simply with things to do‘. I think this is a very important point. I cannot add much to what you have written and highly agree with your well made points. We have rudders, but time and again we throw them away and take other ones. Or the rudders decompose straight in our hands.