Friday, August 12, 2011

Logic, truth (α-λήθεια) and the need for Return


Logical is the familiar. We think that what we know, what we are accustomed to, is more “Rational”. But this is not the true meaning of Truth (αλήθεια in Greek). Day by day we accumulate more dogmas in our thinking. Day by day we build higher castles on the sand. In the time of Parmenides the existence of “non-existence” was under examination. Now we are “certain” that we once did not exist and that we will stop existing at some point (see here). And when a genius comes and proposes a new way of thinking, we react strongly. Until this new way of thinking becomes again familiar and stops looking threatening… But the true meaning of Truth lies within its origin: truth is αλήθεια in Greek and it is constituted by α + λήθη = (do not) + (forget). The ancient Greek inventors of the word have hidden inside it the wisest of all imperatives: Do not forget! Truth (α-λήθεια) is what we find when we re-discover what we have forgotten (λήθη). The beginning can be more wise than the end… Because only then did we were thinking freely.

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