The praxis of language: philosophy and writing in Plato, Vico and Nietzsche

Roberto Schiavo Lena

It may seem strange or paradoxical, but it is a fact: the modern philosophers who have, unlike the ancient philosophers, posited the 'self' into the centre of the logical and real universe, have hardly questioned what is more peculiar to themselves that is, their language. It is not a matter of talking about the content of language or the degree of meaning that the language can transmit because the issues concerning the limits and possibility of language in the fields of artistic, scientific and daily life have already been at the centre of the philosophical debate for some time. Instead, this presentation will try to focus on how the practices of life, word and writing can bring a different way of questioning language justifying the genealogical approach as proposed here. This questions the modes regarding the rise of meaning : how it is possible that a voice, a sound can signify or bring to sign something which is completely different from a sound. Focusing on the works of Plato, Vico and Nietzsche will help to show how shifting from an analysis on meaning to the origin of meaning has its methodological consequences in light of the use of alphabetic writing which is the place from where the metaphysical world of Western tradition was made intelligible. All of this reaffirms that any genealogical discourse can only start from the practices of life, word and writing in order to give substance to an inquiry aiming at being genuinely philosophical.
Bibliography: Plato: Cratylus, Phaedrus, Timaeus, Letter VII Vico: On the most ancient wisdom of the Italians; the three editions of The New Science; Nietzsche : The birth of tragedy, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Genesis of language in The beginning of Nietzsche's theory of language'; The Dionysian Vision of the World