Eduardo Mendieta Memorial
Keynote Speaker: Kevin Jobe, UT Rio Grande Valley
Upcoming Talks
The Naked Interface: Toward a Phenomenology of Language as Technology
Sondra Charbadze | October 5 | 12:30 PM | 214 Harriman Hall
Abstract: Philosophical traditions remain split over the ontological status of language:
while cognitive scaffolding models often treat language as a functional tool, continental
traditions—particularly those informed by Heidegger and Gadamer—reject this framing,
asserting that language is an all-pervasive, originary horizon that cannot be picked
up or put down at will. This paper bridges this divide by proposing a unified phenomenology
of language as techne. Drawing on post-phenomenology and Heidegger’s concept of equipment, I argue that
language functions as an embodied interface that recedes into background transparency
while actively mediating cognitive architecture, intentionality, and perceptual experience.
By examining linguistic failure, I distinguish relative breakdowns (struggling for a word, which exposes language as a functional instrument) from essential breakdowns (existential overwhelm, which exposes the artificiality of the entire symbolic web).
Language as horizon and language as instrument are both essential characteristics
of a phenomenology of language. And because philosophy is an essentially linguistic enterprise, we cannot truly know the
limitations of philosophically-produced knowledge without thematizing the limitations
of language itself. I'll argue that these questions should prompt philosophers to
practice both non-linguistic symbolic practices— like dance or ritual— and non-symbolic
practices, like meditation. Examining the peripheries of language is crucial to bring
clarified awareness both to the practice of philosophy and to our formation as philosophers.