Continental Philosophy of Language

In this paper is considered the linguistic approach to the problem of the relationship between a human being and reality. If in the Christian tradition language was given by God and God endowed human beings with the ability to name objects, then in the 17th century German speaking philosophers, following Descartes’ turn to the ego, had changed this thought. Since Herder and Humboldt language has been considered not as a representation of reality, but as a representation of a human mind. (...) These thinkers were the first who revealed the inseparable interdependence of human thinking and language, the influence of language on the socio- cultural lifeworld of human beings, and the role of language in the development of the world-view. (shrink)

This study aims to corroborate Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations of fundamental ideas from Saussure’s linguistics by linking them to works that were independently elaborated by Jan Mukařovský, Czech structuralist aesthetician and literary theorist. I provide a comparative analysis of the two authors’ theories of language and their interpretations of thought as fundamentally determined by language. On this basis, I investigate how they conceive linguistic innovation and its translation into changes in the constituted language and other social codes and institutions. I explain how (...) they elaborate on Saussure’s idea of language as a system of oppositions by interpreting cultural innovation as a systematic variation of pre-established social norms and, similarly, linguistic innovation as gesturing within language. Connectedly, I show how Mukařovský’s works help clarify Merleau-Ponty’s focus on the gestural dimension of language. By discussing the two thinkers’ arguments in favour of linguistic innovation, I explore what could be called phenomenological limits of structuralism. (shrink)

This article first defines the absolute discourse, then discusses its possibility in theology, as well as the relationships between language, thought, and reality as they derive from the spirituality and life of the Eastern Church. Theology must face several problems—including the paradox of transcendence, the violence of metaphysics, onto-theology, and the duplicity of language itself—, but the Revelation of the Absolute itself legitimizes the theological discourse. By using both affirmations and negations, theology reveals an iconic structure of discourse that opens (...) itself towards life and spirituality. The conclusion is that, in the absolute discourse of theology, words, even ineffable ones, are insufficient without life. (shrink)

What is the concept of sense developed by Deleuze in his 1969 Logic of Sense? This paper attempts to answer this question analysing the three dimensions of language that Deleuze isolates: the primary order of noises and intensities ; the secondary order of sense ; and the tertiary organisation of propositions. What renders language possible is that which separates sounds from bodies and organises them into propositions, freeing them for the expressive function. Deleuze argues that it is the dimension of (...) sense that brings about this genesis of language, and he analyses in detail the three syntheses that bring about the production of this surface of sense. Yet Deleuze also distinguishes between two types of non-sense: the nonsense of Lewis Carroll's portmanteau words, which remain ensconced in the dimension of sense, and the more profound nonsense of Antonin Artaud's psychotic scream-breaths, which penetrate the almost unbearable world of the primary order of noise and intensities. In the end, the focus of Logic of Sense is less the surface domain of sense than the primary depth of corporeal intensities. What Deleuze calls a ‘minor’ use of language is nothing other than an intensive use of language that constitutes a principle of metamorphosis. (shrink)

This article reflects on the nuances and insinuations of a conceptualisation of “lament” as an inability to appropriate any object, or to turn the lost object into a fetish. While mourning, melancholia, and fetishism ultimately remain entangled with the ego (i.e., within a narcissistic configuration), lament goes beyond that, hinting at a loss of ego, a disintegration of the autonomous self. As a sonic expression of the failure of language, lament is a manifestation of the negativity or void at the (...) core of language. However, in lament this negativity is radicalised. This extreme obstruction, which impedes all connection, imparts to lament abstractive powers, ultimately qualifying lament as a political force. The last part of the article argues that the social imaginary of Iran, steeped in numerous failed attempts to rise above domination and subjection (as evident in myriad revolts and two revolutions in the twentieth century), could serve as promising material for the concretisation of such a theory of lament. (shrink)

In the Confessions, Augustine speculates that before we are aware of language, we learn our mother tongue through our mother's touch. These early lessons in language are first taught through a gentle touch: the nipple of the mother in the mouth of the infant. Language is later reinforced by a violent touch: the schoolmaster's switch. Augustine suggests that any memory of a time before the touch of language is purely imaginary. Nevertheless, his autobiography attempts to return to a time before (...) the touch of the mother, which, for Augustine, is at once the touch of the mother tongue.1 Since our relationship to our own infancy is imaginary, our infancy neither properly belongs to our memory nor can it be properly... (shrink)

This essay examines the analysis of language in The Concept of Anxiety and argues that language ultimately reveals itself as both dangerous and salvific. The pseudonymous author, Vigilius Haufniensis, is suspicious of language, for it divides the individual from herself and thereby makes possible the self-forgetfulness of objective chatter. Indeed, this warning (which commenters have tended to follow uncritically) is a legitimate one – yet it fails to grasp that by rendering the self other than itself, language constitutes the self. (...) In other words, the individual’s very existence depends on language. Moreover, the attempt to establish oneself as absolutely self-identical is precisely sin. Language opens us to alterity, and for this reason the demonic cannot endure it and seeks to control it. Language is uncontrollable, however, to the point that no sign permits us to be certain that we have rightly distinguished good from evil, the salvific from the demonic – and salvation can come only if we renounce the attempt to establish distinctions that are beyond our power. By employing a pseudonymous figure who views language with suspicion, Kierkegaard shows that language is dangerous, even deadly, but also allows us to realize that language is the condition of possibility for salvation. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between speaking and spoken speech, and the relation between the two, in his Phenomenology of Perception. Against a common interpretation, I argue on exegetical and philosophical grounds that the distinction should not be understood as one between two kinds of speech, but rather between two internally related dimensions present in all speech. This suggests an interdependence between speaking and spoken aspects of speech, and some commentators have critiqued Merleau-Ponty for claiming a priority of speaking over (...) spoken speech. However, there is a sense in which Merleau-Ponty is right to emphasize the priority, namely, in terms of the ontological priority of the speaking subject with respect to language understood as a constituted cultural ideality. The latter only maintains its ontological status insofar as it is taken up by a language community. I favorably contrast Merleau-Ponty’s views on this question to those of the late Heidegger and de Saussure, and suggest potential applications of this clarified position for contemporary discussions in philosophy of language. (shrink)

This paper explains how we create concepts such as the forest or the backyard through language. Reflecting on Andreas Weber’s hope for a revolution of the life sciences and a re-evaluation of the role human beings play in nature, this paper adopts as a starting point Bruno Latour’s characterization of the distinctionbetween nature and culture as an illusion that came with Modernity. Theoretical notions from modelling systems theory and cognitive linguistics explain that whilelanguage plays a key role in constructing new (...) models of nature, new cognitive habits and changes of belief depend on face-to-face and non-verbal communication with other organisms, human and non-human. (shrink)

Ralph Ellis discusses inspiration in important philosophical and psychological ways, and this response to his essay both appreciates and amplifies his discussion and its conclusions by framing them in terms of sublimation and speech, using insights from the work of Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze. Inspiration is not derived from another plane of existence, but refers to tbe creation of human meaning and value. Inspiration as a form of sublimation conceives sublimation as a process of substitution that avoids (...) elevating a phenomenon from a lower material to a higher spiritual level, and speech can be seen as a complex form of inspiration that forms along what Deleuze calls a plateau. Speech as inspiration is both physiological breath and productive of cognitive and emotional significance. I conclude with abrief consideration of inspiration as speech in Cormac McCarthey’s novel The Road. (shrink)

Marie-Andrée Charbonneau a fait ses études de médecine et de philosophie et c’est tant mieux. Ces deux disciplines lui ont permis de s’intéresser aux premiers travaux scientifiques de Jacques Lacan puis aux textes ultérieurs où les références philosophiques sont omniprésentes. En fait, Charbonneau s’intéresse tout particulièrement à la pensée du premier Lacan qui va de 1926 à 1953 et qu’elle divise en trois périodes. La première, de 1926 à 1932, couvre les premières publications médicales de l’auteur de même que sa (...) thèse de doctorat. La deuxième débute en 1933 avec les textes publiés dans Le Minotaure et se termine par celui de 1938 sur la famille. La guerre sépare la deuxième et la troisième période, laquelle prend fin avec le tournant de 1953. C’est une démarche essentiellement chronologique que nous offre Charbonneau dans son livre, reprenant dans les détails, les textes publiés durant ces trois périodes. Pour l’auteure, Lacan apparaît comme un homme bien de son temps et dont l’œuvre reflète à merveille le milieu intellectuel dans lequel elle s’inscrit. Et c’est à travers ces multiples influences que Lacan tentera d’établir le statut de cette nouvelle science qu’est la psychanalyse. (shrink)

The paper studies Heidegger's reading of the poet Stefan George (1868-1933), particularly of his poem "Das Wort" (1928), in the context of Heidegger's narrative of the history of metaphysics. Heidegger reads George's poem as expressing certain experiences with language: first, the constitutive role of language, of naming and discursive determination, in granting things stable identities; second, the unnameable and indeterminable character of language itself as a constitutive process and the concomitant insight into the human being's dependency on language and her (...) incapacity to master in subjectively. Heidegger characterizes this experience as "transitional" (übergänglich). It is shown that in Heidegger's historical narrative, this places George's poem in the ongoing transition (Übergang) from the Hegelian and Nietzschean end of metaphysics to a forthcoming "other beginning" of thinking. (shrink)

Ludwig's contribution to the discipline of philosophy of language cannot be overemphasized. This article addresses his contribution to resolving problems in philosophy by the use of language, in two of his most famous works: Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations.

The Bakhtin Circle’s conception of language is very much still alive, still productive, in the language sciences today. My claim in this paper is that to understand the Bakhtin Circle’s continuing relevance to the language sciences, we have to look beyond the linguistic theory itself, to the philosophical groundwork laid for this project by Bakhtin in what he himself referred to as his philosophical anthropology. This philosophical anthropology, at the center of which stands an architectonics of self—other relations, opens the (...) door for a radical rethinking of what language is and how it works; a rethinking that in turn opens up and coincides with new directions being explored in the language sciences today. Within the context of Bakhtin scholarship, this paper also argues for taking Bakhtin’s early philosophical works more seriously when discussing the Bakhtin Circle’s conception of language. (shrink)

Ce livre part d'une question : que dit Jacques Lacan ?

The Notion of Substance in the "Ethics" by Spinoza Spinoza searched for a language that could help him to create a monistic system of ethics. Latin was in the 17th century a fairly malleable medium of communication. In its philosophical use it was largely a creation of Descartes. Spinoza wanted to use it in a way that would resemble Euclid's treatement of geometry. He needed a language that would clearly and precisely describe the proces by which a man could liberate (...) himself from the power of passions that hamper natural propensity for social peace and mental equanimity. He decided to begin by describing nature, which was responsible for man's proclivities and abilities. Consequently he needed a new concept of substance which on the one hand could be defined by some initial axioms, and on the other hand would sufficiently flexible to include various aspects of human thought. It is interesting that when Spinoza had to make a choice between flexibility and content, he resolved to adopt a strict method of reasoning at the cost of the received understanding of substance. It is possible that these linguistic considerations led him to adopt the view that substance is identical with God and as such encompasses all principles of operation of the human mind and premises for the deriving of all fundamental concepts popular in his times. (shrink)

resumo Focado num trecho de “Position de L’inconscient”, este artigo faz a descrição gramatical das figuras de sujeito e de linguagem ali empregadas. A intenção é exclusivamente terapêutica – não se trata de propor novas teses, mas provocar o olhar para aspectos negligenciados da prática psicanalítica. palavras-chave Lacan - Wittgenstein - Linguagem - Subjetividade.

A filosofia, sendo um discurso antípoda ao discurso das ciências, no sentido de que não produz um conhecimento sobre particularidades, situa-se a priori no espaço interno de uma clivagem, de uma diferença e de uma dobra onde este discurso e este saber são produzidos e apresentados. Na cena contemporânea três pensadores, Lacan, Apel e Gadamer, tematizam a experiência do humano como ligada estritamente à linguagem enquanto elemento estruturador do humano, na medida em que este é situado no interior do espaço (...) de uma dobra e de uma clivagem. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Apel. A priori. Gadamer. Lacan. Linguagem. Ser humano. ABSTRACT Philosophy as a speech opposite to the speech of sciences as long as it does not pursue a knwoledge on specialities, it is situated a priori at the internal space of a fold where this knowledge is produced and presented. At the contemporary scene there are three thinkers, Lacan, Apel and Gadamer which think human experience as deeply linked towards language as the structural frame of the human being, hence he is situated within the space of this fold. KEY WORDS – Apel. A priori. Gadamer. Human being. Lacan. Language. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship of language within the awareness field.

Hegel’s Science of Logic is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest works of European philosophy. However, its contribution to arguably the most important philosophical problem, Pyrrhonian scepticism, has never been examined in any detail. Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Hegel's Theory of Judgement fills a great lacuna in Hegel scholarship by convincingly proving that the dialectic of the judgement in Hegel’s Science of Logic successfully refutes this kind of scepticism. Although Ioannis Trisokkas has written the book primarily for those students of (...) philosophy who already have an interest in Hegel’s epistemology and philosophy of language and/or his Science of Logic, it will also appeal to those who investigate the problem of scepticism independently of the Hegel corpus. (shrink)

In this paper, I will reflect on the place of language within Michel Henry’s phenomenology. I will claim that Michel Henry’s position provokes an architectonic problem in his conception of phenomenology and I will discuss how he tried to solve it. At the end of the essay, I will try to clarify what I believe to be the ultimate root of that problem involving language.

In The Ethics of Authorship, Daniel Berthold depicts G. W. F. Hegel and Søren Kierkegaard as endorsing two postmodern principles. The first is an ethical ideal. Authors should abdicate their traditional privileged position as arbiters of their texts’ meaning. They should allow readers to determine this meaning for themselves. Only by doing so will they help readers attain genuine selfhood. The second principle is a claim about language. To wit, language cannot express an author’s thoughts. I argue that if the (...) claim about language holds, the ethical ideal becomes superfluous. In addition, if Berthold has identified Hegel and Kierkegaard’s views regarding the issues in question by reading their works, then either they failed to execute their ethical project or their views about language are false. (shrink)

One of the dominant themes structuring the trajectory of Jean-François Lyotard's philosophical work is his concern to think the event in a way that renders it intelligible, but that also respects the alterity and the uncanniness that are essential to it. In this paper I defend Lyotard's earlier understanding of the event, articulated most thoroughly in Discours, figure, from the criticisms of the later Lyotard, articulated most thoroughly in The Differend. More specifically, I attempt to demonstrate that the event, as (...) disruption of the stable system of signification, is given immediately with the signification that it disrupts. (shrink)

Um den wissenschaftlichen Gegenständen die endliche Einheit ihrer unendlichen Bestimmungen zu geben, ist nach Hermann Cohen ein Begriff von Realität nötig, der absolut im Denken gründet (Differential). Differentialmethodisch begründet auch Franz Rosenzweig die Gegenstände seines Offenbarungssystems (Gott, Welt, Mensch), um sie dann in lebendige Beziehungen der Sprache treten zu lassen. Wie kommt es zu dieser Umkehr des Denkens ins Kategoriale und Ethische der Sprache? Ist sie ein isoliertes, bloß individuelles Ereignis oder vielmehr das Werk eines Denkers seiner Zeit? Wo liegt (...) und welche Koordinaten hat Rosenzweigs geschichtlicher Ort? Die Beantwortung dieser Fragen nimmt den interessanten Weg von Edmund Husserl über Martin Heidegger zu Emmanuel Lévinas und kommt dabei dem Logos einer Denkgeschichte auf die Spur. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the problem regarding the objectification of language and the split between thought and poetry. The problem is examined from both a philosophical and a psychoanalytical perspective. The split between thought and poetry is rather complex and it manifests itself in various contexts.

In _The Man without Content Giorgio_ Agamben (1999c) discusses this problem with reference to the sphere of the aesthetic. According to Agamben the birth of modern aesthetics and the problem of representation is the result of (...) a primordial objectification of language. Agamben conveys the instance of the objectification of language as inseparable from a split between thought and poetry. Since modernity this division, which is at the origin of Western culture, has become increasingly manifest. It is, according to Agamben, the underlying cause of a series of schisms for example between artist and spectator, genius and taste, and form and matter which has, in our present time, reached its furthest point.

In _The Parallax View_ Slavoj Zizek discusses similar schisms that is currently discernible in various spheres. In the context of my research, it is his discussion of the split between objective knowledge and subjective truth that is of special interest. In my dissertation this division is respectively brought to bear on the split between thought and poetry. (This claim is broadly expanded on in chapter four). The split between objective knowledge and subjective truth manifests itself, in the social context, as the antinomy of essentialism and constructionism.

My discussion commences in _chapter one_ with an introductory overview of the theme under investigation.

In _chapter two_ the theme is first of all examined from a philosophical perspective. In this regard it is primarily the work of Giorgio Agamben, and especially his view of the nature of language that guides my discussion. According to Agamben we cannot regard language as something (an articulated unity) that has always already taken place. Language rather exists in the form of pure potentiality. By reinterpreting Aristotles doctrine of potentiality, Agamben comes to the conclusion that potentiality is, originally, an (im)potentiality. In so far as the human being is language, he _is_ this (im)potentiality and this (im)potentiality should be seen as the dimension of the _un_appropriable. In view of this _un_appropriability mans primordial situation cannot be a unity (at least not a reflexive or reflected unity). The human being, in so far as he _is_ language, _is_ the primordial gap that enables meaning and signification to _take place_. According to Agamben this (im)potentiality (the dimension of the _un_appropriable) has, however, undergone a primordial objectification in Aristotles logico-metaphysical structure of knowledge. Since then, language as the primordial gap that enables presence and meaning to _take place_, has been neglected or forgotten.

In _chapter three_ the primordial objectification of language and the split between thought and poetry is also considered from a psychoanalytical perspective. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to some of the main concepts in Jacques Lacans exposition of symbolic identification. Attention will only be given to those aspects in the Lacanian psychoanalysis that are related to the theme of research.

In _chapter four_ the psychoanalytic description of the problem is continued. The relation between thought and poetry is explained by reference to two fantasmatic structures of denial. In the Lacanian psychoanalysis the two fantasmatic structures of denial are descriptive of two distinctive modalities of reflection. They represent two subjective attitudes that in psychoanalytic terms are described as the subject of desire and the subject of drive. In this chapter the relation between these two fantasmatic structures and Agambens description of thought and poetry in our time is being explored.

In _chapter five_ the theme under investigation is brought to a preliminary conclusion. In this chapter the co-belonging of thought and poetry is being examined in view of Lacans later conception of language as _non_-All. Of special interest is Lacans concept of the traversing of the fundamental fantasy as well as his ideas regarding the end of the psychoanalytic process. In so far as language is not an articulated unity but rather _non_-All, the co-belonging of thought and poetry implies more than a mere reciprocity of opposites. I hope that we will eventually be able to conceive of a different, and more original kind of relation between the subject and his own inherent _un_appropriability. The denial of this dimension is currently the cause of an impasse in the process of symbolic identification. It points to mans egoistic illusion of authority and self-righteousness.

Lacans concept of the traversing of the fundamental fantasy implies a kind of conciliation between (or co-belonging of) the word (the sphere of the symbolic) and a certain excess or remainder (the_ un_appropriable) over which it has no control. The conciliation or appropriation as being used in this context should not be understood in the usual sense. The conciliation of the word with itself rather points to the subjects experience and acceptance of the dimension of _un_appropriability. This _un_appropriability derives from the negativity inherent in mans drives. In view of this _un_appropriability mans primordial situation is characterised by a feeling of fragmentation and disruption. It is this feeling of fragmentation and disruption which makes mans (or languages) reference to himself _im_possible.

The task of thought then is to traverse the subjects (languages) own presupposition; that is, his presupposed unity or fundamental fantasy. We have to accept the fact that our essence is not something that can be possessed or appropriated as such. Eventually we have to experience and appropriate the _un_appropriable as the inconceivable content and _limit_ inherent in every expression. The _un_appropriable is precisely that dimension in the sphere of the symbolic over which we have no control whatsoever. In view of this the concept of redemption also assumes a new meaning. In this moment the subject experiences his inherent _un_appropriability as constitutive of his freedom. He recognizes his freedom precisely in his primordial bondage (or lack of freedom) that he will never be able to get rid of. This experience should be brought to bear on Agambens description of the experience of language (the _factum loquendi_) as a dimension of (im)potentiality. The subjects experience and acceptance of a certain disruption (or the _un_appropriability of language) is the realisation of _un_reality here and now.

© University of Pretoria 2007

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Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have attempted to save the concept of ?hegemony? from its economistic and essentialist Marxist roots by incorporating the linguistic influences of post?structuralist theory. Their major Marxist detractors criticise their trajectory as a ?descent into discourse? ? a decay from well?grounded, material reality into the idealistic and problematic realm of language and discourse. Both sides of the debate seem to agree on one thing: the line from Marxism to post?Marxism is the line from the economy to (...) language, from ?reality? to discourse. This article focuses on Gramsci?s writings on language to argue against both sides of this debate. It illustrates how language is central to Gramsci?s historical materialism and that he does not oppose it to materiality. It argues that Gramsci adopted the very term hegemony substantially from his university studies in linguistics ? the debates from which Ferdinand de Saussure also developed structuralism. For Gramsci, such linguistic issues were directly related to the ?questione della lingua? and Italian unification. Moreover, language lies at the centre of Gramsci?s understanding of the relationship between coercion and consent. This not only troubles Laclau & Mouffe?s reading of Gramsci, but it illuminates a more productive conception of hegemony that can address recent debates around post?structuralism and the use of ?hegemony? to analyse globalisation and an increasingly technological and electronic world. (shrink)

As its title indicates, this article shows animation to be the fundamental, essential, and properly descriptive concept to understandings of animate life. A critical and constructive path is taken toward an illumination of these threefold dimensions of animation. The article is critical in its attention to a central linguistic formulation in cognitive neuroscience, namely, enaction ; it is constructive in setting forth an analysis of affectivity as exemplar of a staple of animate life, elucidating its biological and existential foundations in (...) animation. (shrink)

Every written work can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so, because later works, ...

This text illustrates how the philosophy of Language, if differently conceived, can directly incorporate questions of political thought and of emotionality, and offers the practical case of defensive strategies against abusive speech. This follows a broad consideration of the inner voice or inner speech as a test case for a new approach to language, in particular as a way of radically rethinking the usual contrast between inner and outer through furnishing an account of how we internalize speech. The book's core (...) offers a substantial critique of orthodox approaches to the philosophy of language from Chomsky and others; drawing on European political thought from Marx to Deleuze, it will move beyond this inheritance to explain and demonstrate its fresh conception of language at work. (shrink)