Speech and Written word

Hey Joe, jumping on this while I'm around. Interesting question for a librarian, and I'm sure the answer must be somewhere around here, as well as the question, "nihil novi sub sole", being nothing new under the sun. Just some first ideas popping up here. What about the influence of other perceptual impairments, like the visual, on mental capabilities and processing information? If I remember well, the Art of James Joyce is largely determined by his decreasing visual abilities, and it may be the same with Borges or perhaps Homer. And how about musical capabilities (Beethoven)? Maybe these were all "special cases" because of their peculiar talents, but Art has to do with information processing no? Perceptually impaired artists being an exemplar for investigating the matter in general, creatively extending your question. Big panoramas unfolding here: perception versus thought versus action... the nature of the artistic process... the reorganization capabilities of the brain.. Who joins in?

Reading seems naturally superior to speech in several ways. First, the written word can be revisited and its contents repeated in the mind, so that the intellect can "take it's time" in understanding the meaning (s). Second, more often than not, the vocabulary employed in writing seems far larger than what is used in ordinary speech (perhaps in some instances to replace the gestures and facial expressions commonly used in speech to help provide the meaning?).
At least as far as intellectual matters go, the written word in the history of civilisation soon replaced the memorised verse as a means of communication of thought.

Hm, wondering about this. Understanding a book may be different from understanding the spoken word, though both require quite some effort. Seeing the act of reading as a "dialogue" being in fact just a lofty analogy. The written word can indeed be revisited but what guarantees us a better understanding if the author is not around to give us an explanation? The discourse in an oral conversation being a matter of "co-creation", the pupil determining the words of the master by his questions, helping him to deliver them by his constant effort. Information processing in oral conversation is at least as intense as in reading a book, as everybody knows who was once involved in a substantial conversation. The oral conversation is "open" any minute, we not only receive the content but we create it too. When I'm tired I lay the book aside, but it's more difficult to dispose of a living person. Books may be "alive", but the man who shares my drink surely is. It's great to read Plato, but it's also great to have your own "symposion"...

Much the same could be said if, after a conversation or dialogue, or even a philosophy class--- perhaps several days later or perhaps several years later--- one has a need to further question what was said, and the participants are not available or have completely "forgotten" the occasion of the thinking.

But it seems that when I awake refreshed, the book is still there and I have not slept though half the conversation, or the person has gone home to bed himself.

Granted, but is this never the case when we read a book, at least the part of helping to create the content by interpretation? While perhaps less common than in discussion, do we not sometimes find ourselves having a dialogue, as it were, with what we are actively (as opposed to passively) reading? We scribble comments or questions, for example, on the margins, or insert bits of paper with reflections or counter examples or references to other sections, etc.. In some instances, this active participating seems something less than active discourse, but something more than a lofty analogy.

Ok, I agree that the notion of dialogue can rightfully be expanded and applied to the reading of books or any other written text, provided that we read actively and with a critical mind, these texts representing the author "in absentia". One might even say there is also a dialogue between the texts themselves, as carriers of their author's arguments, as the lasting expression of their minds and hearts. In each case this dialogue overcomes even large distances in time and space, and texts are indeed a wonderful thing, being the fixation and sometimes perpetuation of human thought (*). Nevertheless there are still some clear differences with oral conversation, written texts being "fixed" in the development of their argument, being definitive and immutable in their outward form. We don't change the words that are written by our active assimilation of them, do we? In the world of books there's even some idolatry of the "correct" text or the "definitive" version. In an oral conversation the development and ending of the discourse are essentially unpredictable (contingent); there's a continuous modification and convincing on either side, in the best cases the truth being the only winner. I often dreamt of some Great Debate, Russell versus Nietzsche for example; what would happen to them during their talk? Would they still be Russell and Nietzsche afterwards, as they are known to us by their books? Of course both of them talked with many people in their lifetime, but with their death ended their personal development, and what's left are "only" books. Now thanks to these books our own personal development can still continue, but we also must evolve by other kinds of conversation, particularly the oral. There's definitely more in life than books.

(*) "Exegi monumentum aere perennius". "I erected a monument more durable than bronze", a bad translation of the noble words of Horace, talking about his poetry.

It is always tantalising to consider how a philosopher would have developed had he not died. We read Nietzsche's notes, for example, in the Will to Power and wonder whither he would have gone, what he would have discarded and what he would have expanded.

And I think we sometimes forget, as we somewhat understandably concentrate on philosophical communication to the exclusion of other kinds, how powerful, illustrative and empowering speech can be in conjunction with the written word. We have only to listen to T.S.Eliot, Robert Frost, or Carl Sandburg reading their poetry to see the poem itself in a different light.

And on the other hand, we may also recall the tremendous influence that Wittgenstein's lectures had on his audience as he worked through the problems he posited.

Just wishing to add a few words about the case of poetry in this perspective, and I hope I'll be permitted some etymology. The english word "poem" comes from the latin (and greek) "poema", which is derived from the greek "poein", which means to make, to construct, pointing towards the creation of the discourse, being essentially a mental, "inner" process. Now poetry in all cultures has grown from the oral, "inspired" diction of the shaman or "bard", who's remembering the discourse and "performing" it on certain moments, often sacred in nature. Consider here the german word "Dichtung", that I suppose to be related to "diction", although the latin verb "dicere" (meaning "to say" or "to speak") is not germanic in origin (the word "Saga" is, being related with "to say" and the german "sagen"). The point being that poetry is some kind of archetype of "speaking", which may explain the magic when it's being read aloud, by the poet himself or by some qualified performer (many poets make a mess of reading their own poems). So in the beginning there were the "Urformen" of communication such as (oral) poetry and dialogue, and then came the Art of Writing, giving birth to the treatise, the novel, the printed book... I once read that this can be seen in the thread Socrates-Plato-Aristotle, representing the evolution from the spoken to the written word, all together meaning a shift in technique for philosophical exploration and for artistic creation. So language written or spoken? Both are complementary and both are still alive, and they haven't lost their dual presence in the age of computers. Do some of you read bedtime stories to his or her kids? For some adults the bedtime story is Nietzsche, and we all are and we will ever be enchanted by words. Amen.