Silencing the philosopher

Em primeiro lugar argumentarei que existem dois modos de tematizar filosoficamente o silêncio: como um fenómeno do mundo e como o silenciamento do filósofo. Este segundo modo constitui um problema cuja carência de solução impede o primeiro modo de tematização. Em segundo lugar, discutirei o cepticismo pirroniano como aquela teoria filosófica que origina o silenciamento do filósofo e contestarei três objeções que defendem que este cepticismo não é construído em modo espúrio. De seguida mostro como o filósofo alemão Georg Hegel se propõe refutar o cepticismo pirroniano no seu magnum opus, a Ciência da Lógica. Finalmente, delineio as consequências da solução hegeliana a este problema para uma tentativa específica na história da filosofia de assegurar um lugar para o silêncio na teoria e na prática ontológica.

The sight of silence : the conceptualisation of silence in the visual cultures of sign language communities

Deaf people are perceived by hearing people as living in a silent world. Yet, silence cannot exist without sound, so if sound is not heard, can there be silence? From a linguistic point of view silence is the absence of, or intermission in, communication. Silence can be communicative or noncommunicative. Thus, silence must exist in sign languages as well. Sign languages are based on visual perception and production through movement and sight. Silence must, therefore, be visually perceptible; and, if there is such a thing as visual silence, how does it look? The paper will analyse the topic of silence from a Deaf perspective. The main aspects to be explored are the perception and evaluation of acoustic noise and silence by Deaf people; the conceptualisation of silence in visual languages, such as sign languages; the qualities of visual silence; the meaning of silence as absence of communication (particularly between hearing and Deaf people); social rules for silence; and silencing strategies.

Elizabeth Bishop’s sounds of sanity

In this article, I examine the implications of rewriting definitions of sanity and insanity through the use of noise, silence, and language,positioningElizabeth Bishop’s short story “In the Village” as a form of resistance against traditional readings of madness, logocentrism, and identity. I suggest that by writing her characters as undivided from the world of sound, Elizabeth Bishop’s story shifts understandings of insanity, which is often conceptualized through denials of agency, allowing her characters to escape in noises and hesitations in language and communication. “In the Village” avoids silencing the “insane” mother through her placement in a caesura of sound and silence. This article avoids a biographical reading of “In the Village,” which is often connected with her own mother’s “mental breakdown,” because Bishop’s writing would have been as much affected by her conscious awareness of her past as it was by the unconscious impulses and histories of writing in the West. Rather, I take into account Bishop’s own personal history as well as the repetitions that reflect a placement in a tradition appearing in the story itself. Using this particular lens, I believe a rereading of “In the Village” is in order, where the “mad mother” is not silenced by the oppressive social structures that control the insane,” but she instead finds escape in the multitudes of sounds that associate with her, erasing the power of language and opening a new world where agency exists in a scream or in a striking hammer.