Presence and truth

In response to Roger-Pol Droit, who laments the loss of a common truth, I argue that truth is necessarily complex, partial, and linked to our experience of the world.

A Truth in Crisis?

The philosopher Roger-Pol Droit, in his book Alice au pays des idées (2025), asserts that what we call “truth” is undergoing a transformation, for the worse: it is no longer about the truth but about my truth, now deemed just as legitimate as shared truths. This fragmentation, which we might call “post-truth,” corresponds to a dissolution of the consensus on what is true. According to him, this phenomenon undermines the possibility of dialogue, encounter, and, more broadly, the collective construction of the world. In this new “post-truth” regime, there would no longer be a shared definition of truth, but rather singular definitions specific to each individual. Droit does not pass moral judgment on this change, which reflects his philosophical rigor. However, he laments that this fragmentation harms the human community. Indeed, how can we communicate, engage in dialogue, construct a common world, or even encounter the other, without a foundation of shared truth?

Droit also criticizes social media and their “filter bubbles,” which reinforce our beliefs by exposing us only to information that aligns with our opinions. These “bubbles” confirm and isolate our individual truths, making it even more difficult to build a shared dialogue. To support his thesis, he provides concrete examples, such as mathematical truths or historical facts, but his approach, while relevant, lacks nuance and overlooks certain essential aspects of human experience. Perhaps he rarely encounters people who perceive the world in a radically different way from his own? Thus, his argument is structured, yet it seems to me that it rests on a reductive conception of truth.

This reduction consists in considering truth as an immediate given, independent of human experience and the conditions of its access. Yet, all truth is relational, precisely to create consensus. We never have access to absolute truth, only to fragments, perspectives, and regimes of truth that structure our relationship to the world. The idea that there exists one immutable truth, accessible without mediation, deserves to be questioned. This is precisely the role of philosophy. And if, at this point, some reject the very idea that truth can be questioned and explored, it is because they refuse intellectual and conceptual controversy, fearing a possible challenge to their certainties. This is what is called obscurantism. Everything must be open to questioning and dialogue; this is how humanity grows, it seems to me.

Truth: Between Objective Facts and Relations

Droit defines truth through indisputable facts, such as “2 plus 2 equals 4,” a bomb exploding, or a plane crashing. According to him, truth defines itself, without requiring any external authority. For example, mathematics provides a shared truth, as evidenced by our common reliance on banking calculations. However, this simplistic view of truth neglects the complexity of the domains in which it applies.

Take mathematics as an example. While some truths, such as basic algebra, are universally accepted, other areas of mathematics are subject to intense debate among specialists. Mathematicians may disagree over complex theories, and these disagreements demonstrate that even within this field, truth is not always univocal. Thus, it is crucial to distinguish between truth in itself and our relation to that truth. Our access to truth is always mediated by tools, methods, and interpretations, making our understanding partial and contextual.

It seems essential to make a fundamental distinction between truth itself and our relation to it. Failing to do so risks falling into a confusion that would lead us to a naive or dogmatic conception of truth. If we take the example of mathematics, one could postulate the existence of a mathematical truth that precedes and surpasses us entirely—a truth that remains out of reach, but whose fragments we approach through our constructions and conceptual tools. In this sense, our relationship to mathematical truths is never immediate but always mediated by structures of thought, formal languages, and evolving scientific paradigms. Thus, we only construct operative mathematical truths, shared within a given framework, but never the absolute truth of mathematics itself.

This distinction becomes particularly illuminating when we move from mathematics to the realm of human experience as a whole. If mathematical truth seems relatively stable within its own regime, the world is not reducible to pure logical abstraction. To imagine that there could exist a single, monolithic truth governing the entirety of reality without mediation or interpretation is an oversimplification of thought. Our sense of truth in the world is subject to multiple registers, to truth regimes that vary depending on contexts and fields of experience. There is thus a physical truth, a psychological truth, a historical truth, a geographical truth, and so on, each obeying its own conditions of intelligibility. As soon as we question what we mean by truth, we must therefore specify: which truth are we talking about, and in what framework?

The Example of Historical Truth

Take the field of history. One might assume that there exists a truth about past events, but does this truth remain fully accessible? There is always an irreducible gap between what actually happened and what we know of it. For instance, on a given territory, murders are committed: this is a fact. But this fact, in itself, does not yet constitute historical truth; it only becomes so once we gain access to it, document it, and interpret it within an intelligible narrative. However, this process of access is always partial and conditioned by the available sources.

Even a direct witness cannot see everything: if they are in a room where a murder is committed, they can testify to it, but they do not know what is happening in the next room. The same applies in an open space: a person’s perception is limited by their field of vision, their emotions, and their attention at that moment. Thus, historical truth is never the totality of facts but a reconstruction that follows from them, subject to filters, gaps, biases, consensus, and ideologies.

It would be tempting to oppose this approach with the position defended by Roger-Pol Droit, who cites David Hume to illustrate the idea that some truths impose themselves. Hume recounts that after debating the nature of truth, the philosophers leave the room by taking the same staircase—no one flies out the window or walks through walls. He concludes that there are indeed objective truths that do not depend on individual perspectives or social constructions.

This anecdote, while suggestive, seems too limited. It forgets that the truth being referenced here belongs only to a particular regime of experience—that of physical space and movement in the world. Yes, there is a truth of the body that falls if one jumps out of a window rather than taking the stairs, but this truth belongs to a specific domain, that of physical laws, which has no direct relevance in other areas. Historical truth, for example, does not function at all according to the same criteria of evidence. What we hold as true in history depends on the documents available, the testimonies gathered, and the interpretative frameworks used.

Similarly, a meteorological truth can be both true and false simultaneously, depending on the point of observation: it may be raining here and dry 500 meters away. What we call truth is therefore not univocal but situated, relative to the conditions in which we experience it.

Far from signifying the dissolution of truth into total relativism, this complexity forces us to recognize that all truth depends on a framework, a scale, and a specific mode of access. It is not about denying the existence of truths but about acknowledging that we can only ever grasp them through approaches, methodologies, narratives, and investigative processes. Roger-Pol Droit regrets the disappearance of a single, shared truth; yet it seems to me that this vision of truth, if it ever existed, was an illusion. We cannot avoid being in relation to truth, and it is this very relation that determines what we call true.

Truth: A Matter of Relation and Complexity

We must therefore recognize that truth is never a raw fact, but rather a relationship to the world, one that we establish through narratives, tools of understanding, and frameworks of thought. Instead of seeking an absolute and inaccessible truth, the philosophical approach should illuminate our understanding, enabling us to assume the complexity of the experience of truth, explore its multiple facets, and grasp the conditions of its emergence.

Contrary to what Roger-Pol Droit asserts, it is precisely by acknowledging this complexity that we can truly engage in dialogue with others. Recognizing that another person’s truth is not identical to our own does not mean falling into dangerous relativism or a “post-truth” regime. Rather, it means acknowledging the plurality of experiences of truth and the systems of meaning that support them.

This question is crucial, especially in contemporary debates about fake news, alternative truths, or the post-truth regime. Let’s take a simple example: a bomb explodes somewhere. Objectively, this is a fact. But truth is not limited to this raw fact. The real question is: who has access to this information? How is it transmitted, interpreted, and narrated? If the event is hidden, censored, or simply ignored, its truth disappears from human history.
The Nazis, during World War II, understood this all too well when they sought to erase traces of the massacres they committed—destroying bodies and altering reality. They were not merely trying to conceal a crime; they were modifying truth itself, by controlling what could be known and told. This logic extended to their systematic elimination of children, a choice made in full awareness of its consequences. This is precisely why historical truth is not a simple inventory of facts, but a process of reconstruction and revelation, grounded in critical investigation and the interrelation of evidence.

Embracing the Complexity of Truth

Thus, truth never exists outside of an experiential and transmissive framework. Contrary to what dogmatic thinking might claim, truth is not a fixed absolute, but rather a living dynamic, a process of agreement and disagreement, of consensus and dissensus. Roger-Pol Droit argues that we must return to a single truth to preserve a common foundation for society. But this stance, in reality, is an illusion fraught with danger: it denies the fact that what we call truth is always a partial construction, an interpretation that can never be completely objective, since it is filtered through our perceptual biases, social frameworks, and tools of understanding.
Filter bubbles and confirmation biases are precisely the expression of this partial subjectivity: each person sees the world through their own lenses. And it is precisely this that we must confront head-on in order to move toward truth.

Even when faced with the same physical reality, two people standing side by side may perceive it differently, depending on their attention, past experiences, or cultural references. This awareness is crucial because it helps prevent the most insidious forms of manipulation. If we fail to understand that all truth is a relation to the world and to others, we expose ourselves to the danger of blindly believing what is presented to us as true, without questioning its conditions of production or its inherent limitations.

Ultimately, truth is both an ethical and political issue, as well as a philosophical concept. It cannot be reduced to a mere correspondence between a fact and its description. Truth always involves actors, discourses, and interpretative frameworks.

Consider the judicial system, which is supposed to establish factual truth. In reality, it relies on narratives and a selection of elements deemed admissible. History, science, and politics are subject to the same mechanisms. There is no pure, unmediated truth—only forms of truth that emerge through dialogue, confrontation, and narration.

This is why, rather than seeking a unified and absolute truth, it is more productive to continually question the conditions under which truth is constructed, shared, and transformed. For this is where the true philosophical challenge lies: never ceasing to question, refine our understanding, and expand the scope of what we consider true.

Truth as a Political and Relational Issue

Truth is, fundamentally, a political issue. It is not merely an abstract concept or a purely cognitive datum—it plays out within power relations, social structures, and institutional practices. Far from being an absolute floating above human realities, truth is always constructed, negotiated, and sometimes even contested. This is why it is inseparable from the frameworks through which it is produced, validated, and transmitted.

Consider the judicial system, which is, at first glance, the arena where truth is supposed to be established. In the collective imagination, the courtroom is the place where “truth prevails,” where right and wrong are distinguished in order to deliver a fair verdict. But anyone who has been through a judicial process knows how illusory this notion is. Justice is not based on raw and immediate truth, but on constructed narratives, on interpretations supported by selected pieces of evidence.

Not all facts contribute to judicial truth—only those that the legal system recognizes as legitimate and admissible within procedural constraints. This means that judgment is always preceded by a selection process, a shaping of facts that depends on legal rules, the strategies of lawyers, and the biases of investigators and judges. Justice does not adjudicate raw facts—it adjudicates narratives about facts.

We know that in many cases, a microscopic detail can overturn an entire verdict: a fragment of DNA found long after the trial, a testimony proven false or omitted, a piece of evidence discarded due to procedural issues. These facts already existed beforehand, but they did not yet belong to the judicial narrative, to “social truth.”
This reminds us that truth always eludes us to some extent, not because it does not exist, but because we never access it in its entirety or immediately. We are always dependent on the tools available to apprehend it, and these tools are necessarily limited, biased, and contextual.

Justice provides a striking example of how truth is not a simple reflection of reality, but rather a relational construction, governed by criteria of admissibility, institutional stakes, and interpretative mechanisms.

Technical Truth vs. Human Truth: A Fundamental Divergence

One might argue that this uncertainty does not exist everywhere, and that in certain domains, truth imposes itself with indisputable objectivity. In the case of machines, computers, or calculation systems, for example, it seems evident that a rigorous and invariable truth governs their functioning. An algorithm follows precise rules: it executes a task and produces a predictable outcome. There is indeed a regime of technical truth, ensuring that under identical conditions, the same program will always yield the same result.

But this technical truth is based on a pre-established consensus. What we call “truth” in this context is nothing more than the reliability of a system built upon formally accepted principles within a scientific and engineering community. These technical tools work only because we have previously agreed upon a shared framework of understanding and implementation. In other words, we define what will be common among us in order to facilitate communication.

This consensus is neither absolute nor timeless—it can evolve, be contested, or be replaced by new discoveries. A mathematical truth used in computing today may be overturned tomorrow by a theoretical breakthrough that redefines the very rules of truth within that technical domain.

And what happens when we apply this idea outside of technical fields? In warfare, for example, truths fragment and recombine based on interests and perspectives. A strategic truth for one side becomes a lie for the other. A fact established in one country may be denied elsewhere. Even material facts—an explosion, a battle, a troop movement—do not automatically create a unanimous truth. Here, truth ceases to be a stable datum and becomes a battlefield of interpretation.

Truth as a Process of Consensus

I do not claim that truth does not exist, nor that it is entirely malleable at the discretion of its actors. That would be a naive relativism. But I do argue that what we call truth fundamentally depends on a process of collective recognition.

Truth is, above all, what is shared, admitted, and rendered intelligible within a given framework. It does not exist as a decree but as an outcome of dialogue, confrontation, investigation, and shared understanding. The true philosophical challenge is not to fix truth in place but to continually question how it is constructed, transmitted, and transformed—because only by accepting this dynamic can we avoid the traps of illusion, manipulation, and arbitrary power.