#das man

[jamabushi]

never

[anaxerneas]

Formal elements in a judgment find their expression in the grammatical parts of language. These may be separate words, or inflections in the lexicon, or the position of the word in a sentence. Such grammatical expressions are not used to name; they do not refer to objects or to features in objects. As words or aspects of words, they are more like imperatives. They signal us to perform certain categorial actions: "and" tells us to conjoin; "but" tells us to posit something with an expectation of a certain consequence, then to posit another consequence counter to the one we expected. Someone who masters a language is resourceful in exploiting, for communication, persuasion, or delight, the many articulations which it permits.

But what kind of imperative is a grammatical term? It is not like a normal command to do something, for there the action to be performed is different from the command and from understanding the command. To fix the carburetor is different from either saying or hearing the order to do so. But to conjoin when we hear "and" is not to do anything except understand what we hear. And the speaker who utters "and" does not signal his auditors to do anything which he does not do himself, provided he is thinking while he speaks, or provided at least that he thought when he prepared his speech. The categorial action is not separated from its signal. But it is distinct from its signal, and the expression can sometimes be achieved – in vague, passive speaking or hearing – without the distinct achievement of the categorial action.

Every speech has at least this much rhetorical purpose: to make its auditors perform the thinking that is signal-led by the grammar of its sentences. This minimal effect is less than persuading the auditors to believe what is said, since understanding is a condition for belief.

In solitary thinking, the limiting case of speech, the speaker turns rhetorically to himself and, guided by the resources of his own language, encourages himself to carry out the actions which his words announce. In such a soliloquy, of course, we do not have a fully established rhetor addressing an audience; rhetor and addressee are only incipiently constituted...The speech once spoken will then become available as a signal for the same performance in other speakers.

Thinking in a language always supposes a substrate of vague formulations, received senses, and problems lingering in the mind. These passive rhetorical suggestions are the margin within which thoughts take shape.

Robert Sokolowski, "The Presence of Judgment"

[jamabushi]

uniformity

[jamabushi]

mlt

[anaxerneas]

From Margaret Guiton's preface to Francis Ponge, Selected Poems

[anaxerneas]

Robert Sokolowski, Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things

[anaxerneas]

A long time ago… There was a man in this very village who had an eye they said could see the truth! Now usually, you have to train your mind’s eye most strenuously to actually see the truth… But this fella, no, they say he had a different way of doing things… His house stood where the well is now…

Shikashi, Ocarina of Time