Matthew Peterson

PhD Student, Divinity School

“Apocalypse and Truth”: an excerpt from a translation-in-progress of Apocalypse of Truth by Jean Vioulac

Wednesday, December 5, 12:30 PM, Swift 200

Jean Vioulac’s Apocalypse de la vérité (Ad Solem, 2014; winner of the 2016 Grand prix de philosophie de l’Académie française) proceeds from his previous work, where he interprets our era, the epoch of technology, as the consummation of Western metaphysics and diagnoses the totalitarian logic that both undergirds and follows from it. Anchored in Heidegger’s middle and late work, Vioulac now presents a genealogy of ontology that shows how our understanding of truth has been overdetermined by its Greek foundation. In this chapter, Vioulac turns to the Epistles of Saint Paul which, insofar as they embody the confrontation of Hebraism with Hellenism, offer a thematic thinking of the coming of the “mystery” within the Greek configuration of truth. By illustrating how Paul exposes an inaugural rejection of nothingness upon which the weight of nihilism rests today, Vioulac delineates a philosophical concept of apocalypse, where the apocalyptic event is understood as the crisis of truth.

Refreshments provided

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