Falsehood Disguised: Unmasking the Truth in La Rochefoucauld

Chapter Ten- Conclusion: The Modernity of La Rochefoucauld

Chapter Ten Conclusion . The Modernity of La Rochefoucauld L'inquisition et recherche de la verite est Ie propre del'homme. La Suite des Margueritesfranfaisest . Notre cause doit toujours 2tre celie de La verite, de queLque fafon qu'elle nous soit montree.* Mme de Sable, Maximes Of the many problems La Rochefoucauld addresses in the Maximes.and in the Reflexions diverses, the elaborate and infinitely varied disguises that falsehood can wear and the arduous nature of the task of penetrating those disguises in order to arrive at the truth are both central concepts in his view of .human nature-what we would today call his psychology. As we have.seen in Chapter Eight, these two ideas are also of vital importance to his views on society, to what might be tenned his "sociology." They should therefore be viewed as the foundation upon which his thought rests, as the ultimate source of virtually all the fundamental principles that unify his work, even if they do not necessarily eliminate all the contradictions embodied in that work. On the one hand, La Rochefoucauld believes that "nous sommes nais aquester la verite" (Montaigne 906) ("we are born to quest after truth"), as Montaigne had shown. On the other hand, experience teaches us that, as La Bruyere was later to put it, "l'homme est ne menteur" (455) ("man is born a liar"). La Rochefoucauld was certainly not the . t The inquiry and search for truth is the very nature of man. *Our cause must always be that of truth, no matter how it is revealed to us. 125 Chapter Ten first moralist to be fascinated by the tensions and the drama created by the basic contradiction between humanity's unlimited capacity for falsity and our unquenchable thirst for truth. Indeed, it is a problem that had intrigued Grachin and Montaigne, . as well as Descartes and Pascal. What is original about La . Rochefoucauld's ideas on the subject is that he manages to show in great detail why it is so difficult to learn the truth about both the thoughts and feelings ofothers and the real motivation for our own ideas and actions. By suggesting that the Self is heterogeneous and multifaceted and by analyzing in great depth . and with a con'siderable degree of originality the internal and external forces that determine human behavior, he demonstrates clearly and convincingly how the vagaries and the complexities of human nature serve to subvert the individual's search' for truth. Most modem readers of La Rochefoucauld, includ:.. ing Lacan, would agree that he succeeds in carrying out the demonstration with a degree of insight and a depth of understanding rarely equaled. At the'same time, as we have seen in the last chapter, his views on self-love and on the arbitrary nature of language-particularly as it is used to describe moral conduct -make him a direct precursor of more recent and highly influential thinkers who have felt the need to undertake a similar broadly based inquiry into the nature of truth. The modernity ofLa Rochefoucauld lies, among other things, in the extent to which he is able to show in precise terms just how problematic and how frustrating the process of searching for truth can be when the field of inquiry is human nature and human behavior rather than the objective reality that is the domain of the scientist. In sharp contrast to Descartes, La Rochefoucauld is not at all sure it is ever possible to acquire reliable information about the true motives of others let alone about our own. General principles may be drawn from a study of human nature, he believes, but there is no guarantee that those principles will apply in aU cases: 11 est plus aise de connaitre l'homme en general que de connaitre un homme en particulier. (M 436; seeAppendix 165) .Coming from a moralist, this is a surprising and profoundly . disturbing statement. Furthermore, while we may be inclined to believe the flattering things our friends say about us, it may 126 Conclusion be, La Rochefoucauld claims, that our enemies see much more . deeply into our hearts and minds than we will ever be able to do: . Nos ennemis approchent plus de la verite dans les jugements . qu'ils font de naus que nous n'en approchons nous-memes. (M 458; see Appendix 166) Such pessimism about the possibilities of finding the truth in moral and ethical matters...