18TH LECTURE AT THE GRAMSCI MONUMENT, THE BRONX, NYC: 18TH JULY 2013 OBSCURANTISM OF FACTS MARCUS STEINWEG
Neither philosophy nor art are matters of proof or opinion. Philosophy and art posit things, they assert. Assertion is distinguished from proof and opinion since it has to make do without certainty. A philosophy of assertion is a philosophy in uncertainty. It surpasses and transgresses the modalities of conventional thinking such as reflection, argument, grounding, and criticism. It is a matter of the subject touching a truth in uncertainty and giving this instance of contact a form, a language. Truth refers to the limits of the world of facts. Philosophy exists only in that it touches these limits. It is an assertion that denies the validity of the imperatives of the factual. Touching upon truth, philosophy has to resist the certainty of opinion and the obscurantism of facts in equal measure. It is a touching of the untouchable and it makes this touching into a life-form.
My aim is to defend the political relevance of art and philosophy against conventional political art and political philosophy. I intend to show that political art and political philosophy establish their own de-politicization. They are not concerned with a politics of freedom, of the impossible and what is most necessary. The politics I am referring to differ from what is usually called politics. This type of politics does not assert or defend interests. It would be about a resistance against the order of socio-political and ideo-cultural reality. It would articulate itself by absolutely refusing the universe of facts and the opinions circulating in this universe. It would be a politics of truth insofar as it considers proof as what comes into conflict with established certainties. It causes the voice of official truth to stutter and be brought to silence.