THE ROLE OF THE ‘I’ OR THE ‘SUBJECT’ IN COMMUNICATION

THE ROLE OF THE ‘I’ OR THE ‘SUBJECT’ IN COMMUNICATION

Human beings are communicative beings. Whether they do anything or do not, speak or speak not and act or act not, they communicate something. Charles Taylor (1931- ), a Canadian philosopher translates Aristotle’s definition of man, “Zoon logon echon,” directly from Greek to English and says that human beings are “animals possessing logos.” Language that Charles Taylor mentions not only signifies the act of speaking rather everything that human being does and does not. Martin Heidegger also affirms that "language is a house of human beings." The philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset once said that man's real nature is language. Keeping in mind that human beings are essentially dialogical or language or communicative beings we will look at different roles that the subject plays in communication.

1. What is Communication?

Since, our endeavour is to look at the different roles played by the subject in communication; we will first look at the general definition of communication. “Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity [sender] to another [receiver].” According to Bernard Lonergan, a Canadian theologian and philosopher communication is an ongoing process of sharing meanings and values. Taylor says that when we speak of the meaning in a given situation we speak of it on three levels.

1. Meaning is for a subject: It is not the meaning of the situation in vacuum, but for a subject, a specific subject or a group of subjects.
2. Meaning is of something, i.e., we can differentiate the situation or action from its meaning. Without a situation there will be no meaning.
3. Things have meaning only in reference to some field, i.e., in relation to the meanings of other things. There is no single or unrelated meaning. So, changes in other meanings can bring change in the given elements.

Taylor calls these kinds of meanings as experiential meanings. Human behaviour or actions necessarily have this meaning in ordinary sense. Human be

haviour refers to actions and the meanings which are present in them. Basing ourselves on this general definition and the definition of Lonergan we will go on to analyze the role of the subject in two levels of communication. The first level of communication is between the self to self (sender and receiver of meaning in this communication is the self itself. I would like to call it as self-communication) and the second is between the self to other selves (the sender is self and the receiver is other selves).

2. Definition of Subject

The subject that we are dealing here is an existential subject. Lonergan defines existential subject thus: “Subject is a concrete and intelligible unity-identity-whole.” Hence, we will look at different roles played by this existential subject in communicating the meanings and values.

3. Subject in Communication

I will look at only four main roles played by subject in the process of communicating meanings and values. They are: subject as an expresser, designator, interpreter and mediator.

3.1 Subject as an expresser

Expressive theory of language which is pioneered by Herder, Humboldt and Heidegger looks at everything that the subject does and does not as expression, i.e., they consider the very existence of the subject as a sign or expression. It is their expression which opens up new reality and meaning. Expression discloses their human world (which is full of meaning). The term ‘expression’ means that “something is expressed, when it is embodied in such a way as to be made manifest.” What expression manifests can only be manifested by expression. In it, the meaning is expressed as well as discovered by the subject (human being). This expression forms a necessary place in forming of the community. Hence, I consider expression as a basic element of the subject in communication.

3.2 Subject as a Designator

Whatever the subject does, act and speak designate a meaning. The meaning is explained only by their relation with other things or words which are in the world. The meaning is signified in the subject and object. This theory is proposed by Hobbes-Locke-Cadillac (HLC) following Descartes’ teaching, that in the mind the subject has ideas and these ideas are representations of external reality. A word or a sign has meaning only when it designates something.

3.3 Subject as an Interpreter

Charles Taylor says that the subject is a ‘self-interpreting animal’. And Lonergan holds that every communicator is an ‘interpreter-communicator’. However, the capacity for interpretation is an irreducible existential structure. What it is to be human depends on our capacity to interpret. In the process of interpreting the essential concerns of human beings, their existence becomes distinctively human. Human existence is constituted by meaning and determined by self-interpretation. Hence, interpretation is a natural capacity to know human existence. Human beings have the capacity to discover meaning (they have capacity to know about themselves and the world) from what they do or what they have done or what they will do by analyzing or interpreting their actions and behaviours with their purposes and plans that they have developed for themselves. Hence, self or person is always an interpreting self. The subject makes clear the meaning in interpretation and communicates it by its very existence.

3.4 Subject as a Mediator

Lonergan considers communication as mutual self-mediation of human beings, their meanings and values. In it, the subject engages in the act of sharing meanings and values through self-appropriation and interpretation. Mediation is an ongoing process in communication.

Hence, I would like to conclude that human subject is an expresser, designator, interpreter and mediator of meaning and values in the process of communication. The subject plays these different roles in communication simultaneously. We cannot compartmentalize them in the process of sharing meaning and values.

References:

Lonergan, Bernard. "The Subject." A Second Collection. Eds., William F. J. Ryan and Bernard J. Tyrrell. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975, 69-86.

Taylor, Charles. “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man.” Review of Metaphysics 25 (1971) 3- 51.

Taylor, Charles. Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Guerrero, Marciano. "Heidegger- Language is the House of Being." http://ezinearticles.com/?Heidegger---Language-is-the-House-of-Being&id=1682879, accessed on 09/02/2011.

Pen, Robert. Bernard Lonergan's Philosophy of Communication. (M.Ph. diss) Nashik: Divyadaan Salesian Institute of Philosophy, 2011.