La force du vrai en déclin : les formes de subjectivation à l’ère de la post-vérité

Abstract

ObjectivesIt has become a commonplace in research in human, social, and political sciences to refer to the current era as being one of “post-truth”. Considering the discontinuity between discourse and truth today, this article aims to identify under which regimes the force of truth is in decline and to indicate some contributions of authors from the psychoanalytic tradition, in order to reflect on the engagement of subjects in discourses of truth. MethodFrom a historical perspective, we refer to Foucault's analysis to identify, in the notion of “force of truth”, a conception of truth established between knowing and power. Then, we propose, based on the theoretical propositions of Freud and of Deleuze and Guattari, (1) an interpretation of the current decline of the truth, and, from Lacan's contributions; (2) possibilities for emphasising the dimensions of otherness and of the limits of the discursive in the experience of truth. ResultsGiven the failure of modern regimes of truth based on the knowledge model and the detachment of subjectivities from the discourses of truth, we identify the rise of a narcissism of small differences and a modality of fascism that submits differences to a principle of identity. Considering this scenario, the psychoanalytic approach demonstrates how powerfully the other occupies an unavoidable place of difference in the experience of truth. This perspective recovers another tradition of truth, which, associated with the subject's work on her/himself, implies the possibility of subjective transformation. DiscussionBy problematising the experience of truth based on knowledge and determined by a metaphysical tradition of the soul (psykhé), that is, by defining ontology as the subject's way of being, we highlight other possibilities of the subjectivation of truth based on the dimension of life (bíos) and of existence. By conceiving of telling the truth in psychoanalysis according to Lacan's reading, we question how this perspective reintroduces the question of the force of truth in the field of ethical discussion. ConclusionsBy promoting the return of truth through a clinical investigation of the subject, Lacan's contribution to psychoanalysis allows us to establish a critique of contemporary forms of subjectivation based on the principle of identity, and to redefine the place of otherness in discourses of truth. The determination of the limits of speech in the apprehension of the real does not give rise to a renunciation of the experience of truth, since, besides being inscribed in the tradition of knowledge, it can be situated in an aesthetic approach, in which the force of truth engenders stylistics of existence.