The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening [Hardcover]

Fiumara seeks to redress an imbalance in our culture and our philosophy - an imbalance caused by our neglect of the `listening' side of language in favour of the power of discourse.First published in 1990. Our philosophy is grounded in only half a language, in which the power of discourse is deployed and the strength of listening ignored. We are inhabitants of a culture that knows how to speak but not how to listen, so we constantly mistake warring monologues for genuine dialogue. In this remarkable book, Gemma Corradi Fiumara seeks to redress that balance by examining the other side of language - listening. Synthesising the insights of Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Gadamer, among many others, she puts forward a powerful argument for the replacement of the `silent' silence of traditional Western thought with the rich openness of an authentic listening.Chapter 1 Towards a fuller understanding of logos; Chapter 2 The logocentric system of culture; Chapter 3 A philosophy of listening within a tradition of questioning; Chapter 4 The power of discourse and the strength of listening; Chapter 5 Listening to philosophical tradition; Chapter 6 The philosophical problem of benumbment; Chapter 7 Silence and listening; Chapter 8 Dialogic interaction and listening; Chapter 9 On inner listening; Chapter 10 Midwifery and philosophy; Chapter 11 Paths of listening; Chapter 12 The philosophy of listening: an evolutionary approach; Notes; Bibliography Index; Name Index;Gemma Corradi Fiumara took her B.A. degree at Barnard College of Columbia University where she studied as a Fulbright scholar. She is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Third University of Rome and a full member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. She is the author of Philosophy and Coexistence, The Symbolic Function: Psychoanalysis and the Philosophy of Language, and most recently The Metaphoric Process: Connections between Language and Life (Routledge, 1995).'The delicate but ... sure-l#&