Quietude and identity: the silent core of language

Article

Siebers, J. 2012. Quietude and identity: the silent core of language. Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication. 4 (1). https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc.4.1.3_1
TypeArticle
TitleQuietude and identity: the silent core of language
AuthorsSiebers, J.
Abstract

Despite the Heideggerian advice to remain silent about silence, this article explores the idea of a fundamental silence at the core of language, an idea that is present in the phenomenological tradition from Husserl to Derrida, but also in other thinkers. The relation between silence, speech, the face and identity is charted, and related to the question what it means to speak a language, and to speak this language rather than that language. The considerations establish the need for a philosophy of communication (in addition to a science of communication) and for an ethics of cautious anticipation regarding language change and linguistic diversity, an ethics which avoids the complicit dangers of (cultural and linguistic) fetishization and instrumentalisation; a multiverse of languages emerges as the only state in which language can exist.

Keywordssilence, language politics, identity, utopia, Derrida, Bloch
Research GroupLaw and Politics
PublisherIntellect
JournalEmpedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication
ISSN1757-1952
Publication dates
PrintApr 2012
Publication process dates
Deposited17 Feb 2014
Output statusPublished
Additional information

First published in 2009.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc.4.1.3_1
LanguageEnglish
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