Bubbles of language

Wittgenstein and Heidegger on language, two sides of the same coin. I picture language as this fluid with bubbles inside: the borderlessness which boundaries are inside it, and can be shown from within albeit not said.

And how are we supposed to walk in the borders of it? Love, it is the first guess: Heidegger's "A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer" can, and more I would say should, be read as the encounter of two lovers. The homosexual side of Heidegger's writing. I hope the reader is familiar with the text, otherwise I think I can ruin his or her lecture. The story goes like this: a japanese guy, J, comes to see Heidegger, hereafter I, for Inquirer, and they talk about Shuzo Kuki, a student from Nishida (and in our travesty story, and ex-lover of I) that died too young. They talk about "what japanese call Iki" and how I's "language is the house of being" can help to understand japanese aesthetics. At the beginning of the talk they are quite respectful, but a certain sexual tension can be read in the text, in the way one finishes the other's sentences. It is a shame that Heidegger did not write it as a dramatic act, it would be interesting to see how he had embedded the dialogue into a scene. I cooks risotto while talking with J, who drinks a glass of white wine and sees the pictures on I's wall: The woods of bavaria, a picture of the Führer raising his hand, an old picture of I and his children in formal clothes sitting next to him and his wife. They sit to eat, J really enjoys the risotto and starts to feel the wine, I talks about Kant. After dinner, I cleans the table and makes coffee while going into the matter: "Speaking about language turns language almost inevitably into an object." "And then its reality vanishes", adds J walking into the kitchen while I is waiting for the coffee. Softly, he puts his hand on I's shoulder and ask for the toilet. I says nothing and looking over his shoulder, his lips barely touching J's hand, signals the door behind. The end of the text is almost breathtaking on that which does not speak:

"I: The passing of the pass is something else than what has been.

J: How are we going to think that?

I: As the gathering of what endures...

J: ... which, as you said recently, endures as what grants endurance...

I: ... and stays the Same as the message...

J: ... which needs us as messengers."

Here one is temped to add, "they embrace on a kiss and the lights go out."

Back to Wittgenstein and the bubbles: "Philosophy [...] should limit the thinkable and thereby the unthinkable. It should limit the unthinkable from within through the thinkable. It will mean the unspeakable by clearly displaying the speakable." To what Heidegger will reply: "The essential being of language is Saying as Showing." And even more: "Saying will not let itself be captured in any statement. It demands of us that we achieve by silence the appropriating, initiating movement within the being of language -and do so without talking about silence." At which Wittgenstein just simply says: "thereof we must be silent."

We. The performative enunciation that comes true when we walk again the path with them, trying to break the bubbles, which of course, are infinite.

Photo by Lydia Elle