metonymy4u

                               The critique of real reason *



What is the significance of a word? Does it link you to something real? Does it re-present some state of affairs in a person or the world? Must a statement be “true” or “false?” The answer to these questions for much of history has been an emphatic “yes.” And yet, at very nearly the dawn of recorded time, there were dissenting voices. Voices that refused to answer the Buddha’s 16 unanswerable questions, voices that needled us with doubts about being able to step into the same river twice, voices that finally suggested that words might be less like anchors, and more like ladders to be thrown away once one has climbed them. The author who has cut herself loose from the optical theory of words (as bringing an object/subject more or less into focus) may studiously avoid the desire to explain herself because any sufficient narrative threatens to weave the web of logic even tighter. And her goal, finally, is escape. So the question becomes, will you walk with her for a time? Not to dis-cover another symbol or meaning, but merely to feel a warm hand in yours.

*With gratitude to Heraklitus, Plato, the Pali canonists, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Carol Gilligan.