A BLOG of PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS & SPECULATIONS

Why does truth arise through mistakes?

Published on Tuesday May 4th, 2010

Žižek in The Most Sublime of Hysterics: Hegel with Lacan:

The idea that one is able from the outset to account for error, to take it under consideration as error, and therefore to take one’s distance from it, is precisely the supreme error of the existence of metalanguage, the illusion that, while taking part in illusion, one is somehow also able to observe the process from an ‘objective’ distance. By avoiding identifying oneself with error, we commit the supreme error and miss the truth, because the place of truth itself is only constituted through error. To put this another way, we could recall the Hegelian proposition which can be paraphrased as ‘the fear of error is error itself: the true evil is not the evil object but the one who perceives evil as such.

Colloqium

Further Reflections

June 2nd, 2013

Racism, Stalinism & Politeness

Caution: 3,337 words ahead The premise of this post has some immediate, flagrant problems, so it would probably be better to just start off with that. Here's the premise: anti-racism is becoming like Stalinism. The obvious (and wrong) interpretation would be that I'm saying that the efforts of anti-racist activists have…

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May 15th, 2013

Critique of User Interface Illusions

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April 3rd, 2013

Compassionate Violence in Buddhism

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