Abstract:
What is truth? What is reason? What is faith? These questions have been hotly debated and
have been the cause of violence prior to the rise of the modern and so-called secular state.
The rise of the modern ‘secular’ state was founded on the distinction between reason and
faith thus bringing to an end the religious violence which was inspired by their respective
truths. The concept of truth will be questioned, thus questioning the ‘truth’ that reason and
faith can be neatly separated from each other and consequently that the secular and religious
can be separated into neat categories. There is an inherent violence (political, religious and
linguistic) in the Truth(s), be it the truths of either religion or secular reason, namely the
originary linguistic violence of truth. This article will ask the question: How can one speak of
truth, reason and faith in a modern civilisation and seek ways beyond the violence of truths
towards interdisciplinary open dialogue of a democracy still to come?
