Previously on ‘Talking Beasts, and where to find them’.
In the last episode (Dearest Gentle Reader, if you missed it, you can click here), we dusted off our philosophical ‘reminiscences’, where Plato reminds us that philosophy permeates language more than we think. We discussed that we are not bees, and that information and communication, no, they are not the same thing.
So, let’s pick up from here. What does ‘E-loquens’ mean, and why is it so different from that other little word that seems so similar, ‘loquens’? Well, while in one case it refers to the mere ability to speak, in the other, the focus is on HOW one speaks:
‘endowed with speech’ vs. ‘speaking well’.
And if there's a ‘how’, then there’s also a ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, and especially a ‘TO WHOM’: am I speaking well? Who am I speaking to? Will the listener understand? A myriad of questions overwhelm us when we open our mouths, and a series of considerations make us worry about the other person in front of us, in a perpetual relationship with what philosophers call alterity. Bees, on the other hand, are satisfied with an action followed by a simple reaction: they tell their companions where to find nourishment, and it’s up to them to go search for it.
In our case, it happens that we find ourselves in a universe of words, which at the same time represent for us a problem, a task, and a commitment. A problem, because we ask ourselves how we should speak. A task, because we care about being understood. A commitment, because our words are the result of a choice. But they also represent the opportunity of a relationship: because we always speak to an alterity, whether tangible or intangible.
Another philosopher, Karl-Otto Apel, adds that when someone writes a text, it is because they want to communicate a certain content to someone else. Ideally, they would also like that person to agree with them, to listen, understand, and respond.
And you, when you write a text, do you want to be understood?
It won’t sound strange, then, at this point, to say that the word is a true ‘moral act’, since speaking=speaking well. And it’s also a project, after all, unfinished: when we think we’ve said what we needed to, we are immediately pushed toward the other, who – BY RESPONDING TO US – demands other images, other words, other relationships.
A true drama, this one, of being E-loquens. Defined by the word, which is incapable of defining. Constituted by language, but only to reconstruct themselves outside of it and through the relationship.
We understand well that the choice of our words is far from secondary. It is even foundational. And it’s not enough to articulate language to call ourselves human beings; we must take care of it… This whole discussion reminds us of something else… Come on, you know it, it starts with L and ends with -inguistic Direction®!
For questions about language, write to us at supernova@remidastudio.com.
