Is it possible to be a witness?

Reflections from Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben

Abstract

This article investigates the possibility of witnessing and claiming a testimony “in truth, of truth, for truth”. It questions the relationship between testimony and evidence, taking into account a radical critique of the conception of truth as presence, as presented by Jacques Derrida. Furthermore, it discusses the impossibility of witnessing radical events, as argued by Giorgio Agamben. The objective is to reconsider testimony as something that cannot fulfill its promise, that is, to tell the truth. Despite this impossibility, testimony occurs in the trace of writing between signifiers and, following Agamben’s reflections, it also relates to something beyond this signification. In this sense, the importance of questioning what is no longer present, but gives voice to the unnamable and cannot be expressed by language is explored, as exemplified by Agamben in the analysis of the figure of the “muslim” in Auschwitz. The article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the reasons why testimony should not be considered merely as a means of proof, but rather as something that leads us to experience the impossibility of witnessing.