Ethics Of Writing by Carlo Sini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Peculiar Power of Alphabets

Some time ago I made the outrageous suggestion that the adoption by the Greeks of the Phoenician alphabet in the 8th century BCE was a decisive turning point in Greek, and therefore European, culture (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). My hypothesis was that this purely alphabetic script which replaced its largely hieroglyphic and pictographic predecessors was a force for both literary and civic development. The alphabetisation of the Greek language promoted not just the recording of ancient bardic legends passed down in song; it also meant that the written language represented the spoken language. That is, written language had become part of everyday affairs.

But according to Carlo Sini, my hypothesis does not go nearly far enough. For him The alphabetisation of Greek affected not just literature and civic affairs. It transformed the way we think. Writing became not just a symbolic exercise but an expressive reality. As Heidegger put it, the concept of truth passed from that of aletheia (‘disclosure’ in Greek) to that of veritas (‘rational or reasoned truth’ in Latin). As Sini says, “We read aletheia and we think veritas.”* More philosophically:

“The alphabet becomes a system of signs that enables the translation from a visual sign to a vocal emission. The concept of universality thus arises as the ability to transcribe any spoken language and any personal experience into a dimension where thinking and saying are void of all factual contingencies.”

Sini’s basic proposition is simple: the form of alphabetic language has content. Although this content can never be encountered outside the infinite number of particular examples in which form exists in everyday speech and writing, it is there shaping our minds to its demands. Primary among those demands is a certain linear mode of discourse which itself generates the rules of logic, the conventions of mathematics, and eventually a decidedly analytic culture that we call Western civilisation (It occurs to me that it may also generate a number of linguistically-induced dead ends, from the self-referential aporia of mathematics to the apparent contradictions of quantum theory). The Greeks thought of Hermes as the inventor of the alphabet and represented it as a pile of stones in his temple one on top of another with no inherent relation to anything else, a warning of the dangers it posed perhaps as well as a memorial.

So Sini’s philosophical task is to develop an ethics of writing which recognises the finite but not relative character of truth. He accepts Heidegger’s distinction between Disclosure of Being and The Judgment of Reason, but does not accept that either settles the matter as the only alternatives. Rather, Sini treats truth not as an idea or a criterion but as a practice that moves from the use of signs to the use of symbols (using Peirce’s terminology). Writing (or language in general) does not for him mean the oblivion of truth but is “the technical mode in which the content of the form of truth presents itself.” This content of the form is the heart of his philosophy and is difficult to summarise, but here is Silvia Benso’s attempt in her introduction:

“[T]ruth should be understood on the basis of the content of the logical form as defining linearization of the voice. In other words, the ultrasensible vision of truth has as its ground the emergence of the “logical” meaning of logos that in turn is the result of a concrete practice that translates previous ancient vocal and gestural meanings into a new universe of sense. Such is the universe of logic with its specific signs.”

As I said, this is not easy going. Sini’s work demands dedicated attention. But the potential payoff is a new and possibly productive way to avoid the perils of both literalism and relativism which seem to plague our world at the moment. His idea that “truth is situated inside a universe of practices“ is certainly provocative. It certainly conforms with Peircean semiotics, and with Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. But Sini tries to penetrate these insights further. For him:

“…[E]ach person does not set up the rules of the game, but rather becomes a piece in a game that is already being played and is nevertheless very serious. In this manner, truth emerges as inserted in a universe of practices that themselves conform to other social practices while founding new ones. All practices, therefore, including the specific practice of writing constituting philosophy, are linked to ethics, that is, to a specific way of being in the world, to an ethos.”

What Sini hopes to achieve is not any kind of epistemological revolution but a “simple invitation to dream more truly,” as he puts it. I can’t resist. If nothing else this is the most exciting train of thought I’ve encountered in a very long time. For me its primary importance is the possibility of revealing how language becomes an instrument of power rather than merely expression. So I’m hooked. Stay tuned for further instalments.

*I believe that another way of saying this is that we speak logically in the form of modus poenens (If P then Q; P; therefore Q) but we listen in the form of modus tollens (If P then Q; Not Q; Therefore Not P). In other words we experience in the form of Disclosure (modus tollens) but think in the form of Reasoned Truth (Modus poenens). The results in almost every aspect of life are devastating. The process eliminates the possibility of argumentative resolution on any issue except accidentally. This is an explicit example of what Sini is establishing in his piece. It is, of course, possible to read his exposition itself in the manner of modus tollens, something he is trying to avoid by his lengthy discussion of the reality of form. But ultimately even this may rejected by some, in a way confirming his distinction and the dramatic power of the alphabetic/linear/analytic form.

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