Speaking the language

The subject of this essay is the dialectic between word and thought. Between the word and the thought there is therefore no priority of one over the other, but mutual presupposition and a perpetual overlapping: it is at this level that the link between word and thought is actually affected by creativity. Between thought and word there has always implicitly been an original complicity that makes it impossible to separate the two dimensions, thought and expression. Therefore language appears as an inner dimension that is incarnated in expression giving shape to the unrepresentable; it is not merely a sum of positive elements added to each other, but a series of diachronic relations; the linguistic sign cannot be seen as having one definite, univocal meaning, but it is in the gaps and in the opposition between signs that all language becomes meaningful. Language is a constant work-in-progress, which cannot be schematised and viewed in static form. It is an equilibrium in incessant movement between signs and signs, living and dynamic, and is continually being renewed. It is about what is said: talking does not finish in what is said, but in what is said the talking is captured and held. As far as language is concerned, if it is the relation between signs that gives each sign meaning, then meaning arises from their overlapping as well as from the gaps between words; meaning lies in the verbal chain since it stands against other signs; its sense is an integral part of language; words always operate on a background of words, and it is never anything but a fold in the vast fabric of speaking. In the light of contemporary philosophical thinking, language is to be seen as a set of margins between signs and meanings, in a process of continual revelation, in a transformation of contents that generate other contents. The assumption is that in language there is something problematic, the coexistence of the logical level with the pragmatic one, in a continuous movement that cannot be stopped in signs. In this sense, it is right to call it the unsayable, the ungraspable. Language lives precisely due to and on this constant aspiration to say the unsayable, to take into oneself the ungraspable.

本文的研究主题为语言与思想之间的辩证关系。语言与思想之间并无孰先孰后的优先级，二者互为前提且始终相互渗透：正是在此层面上，语言与思想的联结才真正为创造性所形塑。思想与语言之间始终暗含着一种本源的共契关系，使得思想与表达这两个维度无法被割裂开来。因此语言作为一种内蕴维度，寓于表达之中，为不可言说之物赋予形式；它绝非诸多独立元素的简单累加，而是一系列历时性的关系网络。语言符号不应被视为拥有单一、明确的固定含义，恰恰相反，正是符号间的间隙与对立，才让整个语言系统获得意义。语言始终处于动态生成之中，无法被静态化、图式化地审视。它是符号与符号之间永不停歇的动态平衡，鲜活且富有生命力，并始终处于不断更新的状态。语言关乎言说本身：言说并未终结于已说出的内容，反而正是在已说出的内容之中，言说的本质被捕捉与留存。就语言而言，若正是符号间的关系赋予每个符号以意义，那么意义既产生于符号的相互渗透，也诞生于语词之间的间隙；意义蕴含于言语链条之中，因其与其他符号形成对照而获得自身的规定性；其语义本就是语言系统不可分割的组成部分；语词始终在语词的背景中发挥作用，它不过是言说之宏大织体中的一处褶皱而已。立足当代哲学视域，语言应被视作符号与意义之间的一系列边界域，处于不断彰显自身的过程之中，是一种以内容生成内容的转化运动。其立论前提在于：语言之中始终存在着某种张力——逻辑维度与语用维度的共存，且二者处于永不停歇的运动之中，无法被固化于单个符号之内。就此而言，将语言称为‘不可言说者’与‘不可把握者’恰如其分。语言恰恰正是依托并生发于这种恒久的渴望：言说不可言说之物，将不可把握之物纳入自身之中。