H. IBRAHIM TÜRKDOGANOmar Khayyam and Max Stirner
Translated by
Ulrike Hirschhäuser
I Determined To Rely On Nothing !2)
The Inexpressible c) Language
always refers to objects. It also turns abstractions into objects. Images
arising in man´s mind can only become objects of language in a minimalized
form. They can and must be communicated within a frame, i.e. communicated as one
unit. During this process various ideas come in to being unrestrainedly. The
objects vary, too. Unity is a manifestation of order. The evolution of order can
perhaps be explained by a very short story: Once upon a time man´s
superstitious mind thought the world to be cosmic and to make this condition
last eternally the world had to be protected against a demon who wanted to turn
the world into chaos. So it was the fear of demons that evoked the unity of
thought, that is to say reason. Whatever it was that caused order to develop,
since its emergence the human mind
has thought in categories and has identified words with objects at any rate.
Mauthner tells us about Buddhism, saying, “even the most cryptic statement of
Buddhist mysticism is hardly language at all, can hardly be categorized
grammatically speaking.”[1]
This goes for Stirner, too: if we conceive Stirner´s
philosophy of the unique ego as an object, then the unique ego cannot be
rendered in words, cannot be communicated. If we thought in categories in this
case, we e.g. would have to identify “identity” with “missing
identity”.This would mean that the divine and the mundane are identical. And
this would be a paradox, which we often encounter when analyzing language. Language
mainly consists of contradictions. It starts with the fact that man opposes
language but speaks at the same time. To put it in Goethe´s words, “You need
not confuse your fellowmen by contradictions! As soon as you open your mouth you
are mistaken.” [2]
From Stirner´s point of view silence is a presupposition of
being able to experience the ego in its entirety and not only fragmentarily. As
soon as somebody enters the realm of silence to learn something fundamental, he
will get rid of words and thoughts while experiencing his limitations, so as to
be wrapped up by his ego, this “nonentity”. Being
silent man undergoes a change, thus experiencing everything, because he strikes
every chord in himself. It is then that he enters the realm of the inexpressible,
the uncommunicable, the realm of mysticism.The realm of the unpronounceable
differs from the realm of reason. A mystic´s empire is devoid of language. Mauthner
tries to explain the inexpressible by “paltry words”: “There is only one
world. There is no God beside that world, there is no world beside God. This
conviction used to be called pantheistic, strictly speaking: panentheistic (seemingly
to preserve God as a person). Why not? It is only words... Why bother about
words? ... My self-awareness, the individual´s oneness is a delusion ... Are
those words merely philosophical collocations? Wordplays? No, they aren´t. What
I can experience is real. And for a short period of time I can experience it,
and thus I will forget about the ‘principium individuationis’ , and I will
stop drawing a distinction between me and the world. ‘And I will be godlike.’
Why not?”[3]
[1]
F. Mauthner Lexikon der Philosophie (Dictionary of Philosophy), p. 120 [2]
J.W. Goethe in L.Klages p.73 [3]
F. Mauthner Dictionary of Philosophy pp. 131-132
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