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Violence to the other can be too easily explained and justified. The ‘just wars’, inquisitions, colonial invasions, gulags and genocides, always claim to be rooted in truth. This book is an exploration of the relation of reason to crime, where the former is used as an alibi to the latter. Directly relevant to contemporary events, this essay dynamically combines philosophy and history, ideas and events, in the style of a live commentary. Recalling the debate between Plato and the sophists, the author shows that the truth of the philosopher is Janus-faced, and can pass the false for the true and vice versa. The quest for truth however, is what gives meaning to humanities’ never ending concerns (life and death, happiness, good…), thus subjecting men to the abstract world that they construct for themselves. What do we then see? The Janus-faced truth of a representation of the world that allows people to kill in the name of an idea: murder becomes a rational act, part of a logic formed of discourses that are considered ‘true’.
The book gets straight into the heart of the matter with the biographical accounts of three tragedies: the Spanish Civil War, WWII, and the Cambodian genocide. Through the account of these lived experiences of historical tragedies, the author draws a parallel between three important moments of the history of metaphysics: Saint Augustin, Hegel, Heidegger, and the ideals that they defend. The search is successful: violence is not merely an unwanted, eccentric element of reason, but can indeed be found at its very heart.

Belgium philosopher Pierre De Roo was born in Portugal and now lives close to Lisbon. He studied physics then analytical philosophy (Wittgenstein in particular), and now works as a strategy consultant all over the world. De Roo has written numerous articles as well as a book, Mécaniques du Destin : une approche philosophique des théories de l’avenir (Calmann-Lévy, 2001).