Philosophical language must interweave expression and communication, neither reducible to the other

Evidence

Best able to meet the demands of this predicament would be a philosophical language that would strive for intelligibility without confusing it with clarity. As an expression of the thing itself, language is not fully reducible to communication with others. Nor, however … is it simply independent of communication. Otherwise it would elude all critique, even in its relationship to the matter at hand, and would reduce that relationship to an arbitrary presumption. Language as expression of the thing itself and language as communication are interwoven. The ability to name the matter at hand is developed under the compulsion to communicate it, and that element of coercion is preserved in it; conversely, it could not communicate anything that it did not have as its own intention, undistracted by other considerations. This dialectic plays itself out within the medium of language itself; it is not merely a fall from grace on the part of an inhumane social zeal that watches to make sure that no one thinks anything that cannot be communicated. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1014

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precisely specifies Adorno’s dialectical account of language: expression and communication as interwoven functions, with coercion preserved even in the liberatory naming act.
• DEEPTHINKING: A dense dialectical specification of Adorno’s philosophy of language that resists one-sentence summary — the interweaving of expression and communication with its preserved element of coercion.
• XREF: connects to: Language is not invented but is the originary recognition of the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 952; Expression alienates thought, requiring the Other’s freedom to give it meaning; Derrida’s politics lack rational grounding because his language philosophy denies discourse-world relations. (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Language enables meanings rather than passively carrying them #expands (0.80)
• Meaning arises from articulating linguistic systems rather than reflecting the world #expands (0.80)
• Speech is fundamentally agonistic play, not mere communication #complicates (0.75) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 142
• Dialogue is an existential necessity, not a technique for exchanging ideas #expands (0.75) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 262