H. IBRAHIM TÜRKDOGAN

Omar 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]


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[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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