On What Cannot Be Said

Description

Apophasis has become a major topic in the humanities, particularly in philosophy, religion, and literature. This monumental two-volume anthology gathers together most of the important historical works on apophaticism and illustrates the diverse trajectories of apophatic discourse in ancient, modern, and postmodern times. William Franke provides a major introductory essay on apophaticism at the beginning of each volume, and shorter introductions to each anthology selection. The second volume, Modern and Contemporary Transformations, contains texts by Hölderlin, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Dickinson, Rilke, Kafka, Rosenzweig, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Weil, Schoenberg, Adorno, Beckett, Celan, Levinas, Derrida, Marion, and more.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Comparative Religion
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Theology
• Epistemology

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268070564
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

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O N W H AT C A N N O T B E S A I D

Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts

 .    

Edited with Theoretical and Critical Essays by William Franke

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

University ofNotre DamePress Notre Dame,Indiana www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Copyright ©by University ofNotre Dame Published in the United States ofAmerica

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

On what cannot be said : apophatic discourses in philosophy, religion, literature, and the arts : vol.:Modern and contemporary transformations / edited with theoretical and critical essays by William Franke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02885-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02883-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-268-07056-4 (web pdf) . Mysticism.. Negative theology.. Speeches, addresses, etc. I. Franke, William. .  —dc 

∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

If that be simply perfectest Which can by no way be expresst But negatives, my love is so. To All, which all love, I say no.

—John Donne, “Negative Love”

Comme certaines musiques Le poème fait c hanter le silence, Amène jusqu’à toucher Un autre silence, Encore plus silence.

—Eugène Guillevic, “Art poétique”

CONTENTS

Preface: Apophasis as a Mode of Discourse Introduction: Modern and Contemporary Cycles of Apophasis

F F

 

“The Root of All Evil,”Poems: “What Is God?,” . Hölderlin, “In My Boyhood Days,” “Exhortation,” “Brevity” “The Stupor of Reason,” from. Schelling, The Philosophy of Revelation, Berlin Introduction, Lecture VIII . Kierkegaard,Fear and Trembling,from Problema III . Dickinson, Poems,,,,,,,, ,, . Hofmannsthal,The Lord Chandos Letter . Rilke,Duino Elegiesand;Sonnets to OrpheusI.,, . Kafka, “On Parables” and “The Silence of the Sirens” . Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”

NAP

from. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption: God and His Being or Metaphysics; Esthetic First Principles; The Proper Name; Liturgy and Gesture; The Star or the Eternal Truth “A Lecture on Ethics” and. Wittgenstein, Tractatus.– . Heidegger, “Words,” fromOn the Way to Language “He Whom We Must Love Is Absent”. Weil,

   

. .

.

. . . . .

. . .

. .

. .

viii

Contents

D,C,RN

Malevich, “God Is Not Cast Down” Schoenberg,Moses and Aaron,Act II, scenes–, and Act III (fragment) Adorno, “Music and Language: A Fragment,” from Quasi una fantasia,andNegative Dialectics,III.iii. Cage, “Lecture on Nothing,” fromSilence Jankélévitch, “Music and Silence,” fromMusic and the Ineffable Beckett, fromThe Unnamableand “Texts for Nothing,” # Steiner, “Silence and the Poet,” fromLanguage and Silence Philip, fromLooking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence

TUO

Bataille, fromInner Experience Jabès, fromEl, or the Last BookandThe Book of Resemblances Celan, selected poems: “Below,” “An Eye, Open,” “With All My Thoughts,” “Dumb Autumn Smells,” “Psalm,” “It Is No Longer,” “Mandorla,” “Etched Away,” “Once,” “The Trumpet Part,” “The Poles” Levinas, fromOtherwise than Being or Beyond Essence Blanchot, “How to Discover the Obscure?” from The Infinite Conversation Derrida, from “Sauf le nom (Post-Scriptum),” inOn the Name Marion, fromGod Without Being

Permissions and Acknowledgments

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     

 

 

  

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PREFACE

Apophasis as a Mode of Discourse

The critical revolution of recent decades has changed how we approach the reading and understanding of texts. We have become increasingly sensitized to the fact that we need not—and cannot—always take discourse at its word. For the word often, if not always, covers over more than it makes manifest, con- ceals as the very condition by which it reveals. We have therefore been relearn- ing to read for what words do not and perhaps cannot say. This entails attend- ing especially to the ruptures and interruptions, to the silences and ellipses, that displace discourse and break the circuits of sense. These gaps open dis- course to the non-sense or surplus of sense that it embodies and bears witness to, even without being able to say it. The motivations of discourse lie to a great extent in what cannot be said, and to read for this unsayable that is betrayed especially by impasses to saying is to recognize the moment of apophasis, of silence andunsaying, as constitutive of saying and its meanings. “Apophasis” is the word used by Plato and Aristotle simply for a nega- tive proposition or denial. But etymologically it suggests even stronger nega- tive meanings such as “away from speech” (apo:away from;phasis:speech or assertion) orun“apophasis” takes on thesaying. Among the Neoplatonists, connotation of a negation of discoursesimpliciter, for they concentrate on the inability of discourse per se to affirm anything whatsoever about ultimate re- ality, for them “the One.” Ever since these ancient and endless speculations, the intrinsic limits of discourse, with its failure to attain its object and to articulate the ultimately real, as well as the silence that follows as a consequence, have been a perennial preoccupation, especially at certain junctures, of the Western intellectual tradition. The great variety of discourses—and inflections of dis- courses—that have resulted can be considered together as different expres- sions of an apophatic mode. As a discursive mode, apophasis arises in the face of what cannot be said. It bespeaks an experience of being left speechless. There are no words for what is experienced in this form of experience, no possibility of a positive descrip- tion of it. One falls back on saying what it is not, since whatevercanbe said is notit. By their very failure, however, conspicuously faltering and foundering

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