The Limits of Language Propositions and

THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE:
PROPOSITIONS AND CATEGORIES
Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

Senior Professor of History and Philosophy
University of Santiago de Compostela
Ich verstand die Stille des Aethers,
I understood the silence of the Ether,
Der Menschen Worte verstand ich nie.
But the words of mankind I never understood.
Friedrich Hlderlin
Friedrich Hlderlin
Da ich ein Knabe war
When I was a Boy
In des Herzens heilig stille Rume
Into the heart of quiet sacred rooms
Muss du fliehen aus des Leben Drang.
Must you flee from lifes urge.
Freiheit ist nur in der Reich der Trume,
Freedom is only in the realm of dreams,
Und das Schne blht nur in Gesang.
And the beauty of flowers only in song.
Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Der Antritt des neuen Jahrhunderts
The Start of the New Century
Abstract
The last few decades have found philosophy bewitched by the charm of linguistic expression,
itself a product of its own internal evolution and a faithful reflection of the tendency towards
verbalism, which has always been one of its capital sins. In this essay we offer a new
proposal for the theory of propositions and the theory of categories, starting off from two
basic ideas.
The first of these is that every proposition, regardless of its type, is structured into four
components: reference, sense, tone and expression. Thus, we can explain the function of
language much more simply, while taking into account all of its possible uses. This idea is
inseparable from a new formulation of the categories, starting out from its Aristotelian and
Kantian definition in other words, as a base of everything that can be said and thought
which is now given a new structure in the systems of categories of quantity, ethics, action
and expression.
This book, following the philosophical tradition of the analysis of the relationship between
thought processes and language, integrates not only linguistic and epistemological
perspectives, but also attempts to include the latest discoveries in the fields of neurology,
psychiatry and the social sciences as essential instruments for the understanding of human
thought processes, language and conduct.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Numbers and Their Categories
Propositions and Categories in Ethics
Propositions and Categories of Expression
Propositions and Categories of Action
Propositions that Lack Reference
On the Impossibility of Comparing Expression and Reference
Expression and Silence
Expression, Pain and Fear
On the Impossibility of Propositions Lacking Expression
On the Propositions that Express Expression, or the Internal Language
Coda
Bibliography
The Limits of Language - 1
Introduction
Most human knowledge must evidently be expressed orally; nevertheless, a large
part of this knowledge is beyond the limits of language. This fact tends to receive little
attention from philosophers and scientists who cultivate the various types of knowledge
because they live in a predominantly verbal world, a world which believes that everything
which can be known must necessarily be communicated verbally. Furthermore, the prestige
of philosophers, scientists and the supporters of the humanities depends on the verbal
success of their work.
The situation is actually much more complex, since, as well shall soon see, all
attempts at developing theories on scientific (mathematical, logical) propositions with the
objective of giving faithful descriptions of reality, have resulted in failure and have fallen prey
to their own contradictions. We will thus attempt to show that all languages, whether formal
or not, in which a number of propositions can be generated, are based on the use of systems
of categories without which it would not be possible to put those propositions together.
The study of the categories we are referring to could be interpreted as a partial
defense of transcendental analysis, as defined by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik
der reinen Vernunft). Here, based on Aristotles table of the different types of judgments a
table which could be thought of as a thorough system providing an explanation of all possible
types of propositions Kant attempted to design a draft of the internal structure of the
thinking process, going from a logical or linguistic point of view to a gnosiological or
epistemological one, in such a way that it would go from the sphere of that which can be said
to that of what can be conceived.
We say that the study of the categories can only be interpreted as a partial defense
because it is not a question of making an assessment of Kants thinking process and its
evolution. Against his harmonious architecture of reason, we shall propose another model
based more on the discontinuous than the continuous. A model in which the sovereignty of
judgment (i.e., the propositions structured around the ideas of truth or falsehood which have
been enthroned by the sciences) give way to a more complex reality in which language ends
up establishing not only the limits of the world, but also the limits of the speaker.
One of the reasons we have chosen Immanuel Kant is that we will attempt to apply
our theory to four fields: the fields mathematics and ethics (studied by Kant and sharing the
common element of being composed of systems of propositions which can be linked in such
a way that some can be deduced from the others), and the fields of expression and action
(studied by Kant only indirectly).
We believe that every proposition has content and form. The form of a proposition
depends on the system of categories that allows for their enunciation without making
reference to any content. A propositions reference is determined by two types of factors:

ontological and formal.
The ontological factors are those which give content to a proposition and depend
basically on the types of real objects it refers to, keeping in mind that we cannot define as
real only that which belongs to the physical world, but all that which can be stated as a
thinkable reality at a collective level.
The formal factors as defined by the terminology we are using are those that
make a proposition conceivable and consequently provide it with a definite content. Those
factors, which we call categories in the four examples we will develop, are previous to the
enunciation of a proposition. Not in a chronological sense, since they are simultaneous with
it, nor in the ontological sense because they possess the property of reference but in the
structural sense. In other words, they designate the field in which a type of proposition is
possible. Utilizing the Kantian language: they are conditions of possibility of a definite type of
proposition.
The categories as defined in these four cases are neither irrational nor intuitive.
The thinking process can occur without being conscious of them, but not without them.
Nevertheless, being conscious of the categories which we cant actually say exist because
existence is a property belonging only to cognoscible objects lets us to avoid the
development of futile efforts, as has been the case in large measure in the field of
mathematics with the attempt to deduct all branches of mathematics starting off from logic or
arithmetic, or in the field of ethics with the establishment of unilateral ethical theories which
attempt to explain all possible human conduct.
Being conscious of the existence of those categories not only saves us the effort of
developing global theories that attempt to explain complex systems of facts or theories, but
also allows us to avoid metaphysical complications involving the study of such themes as the
existence or non-existence of numbers, or of a universal legislator, or God, or the meaning of
human life, the latter being an omnipresent theme welcomed or not of ethical reasoning.
We shall now go on to our first example: the theory of numbers, in which we describe
the value and the limitations of two of the most important attempts developed so far in this
field.
Numbers and Their Categories

In this section we shall start out from the basic ideas developed by Lakoff and Nez
(Lakoff and Nez, 2000) in their book Where Mathematics Come From. According to these
authors, mathematical reasoning is based on a series of notions rooted within our
sensorimotor system. Nevertheless, their book does not include the relationship between
propositions and categories which we will now attempt to develop.
1- By theory of numbers we are referring to a collection of propositions or axioms
that can provide an exhaustive definition of their own properties.
2- Until now, all theories of numbers have centered upon the problem of succession,
attempting to explain the system of numbers starting from 0 and 1.
3- These theories are inadequate because they confuse what is being defined with its
own definition by accepting the intimate connection existing between the idea of numbers
and the idea of succession.
4- This is so in the case of Peanos axioms:
a. Zero is a number.
b. The successor of any number is another number.
c. No two numbers have the same successor.
d. Zero is the successor of no other number.
e. Any property belonging to zero and also to the successor of any number which
possesses said property belongs to all the numbers.
5- And also with Frege and Rusells theory, according to which:
a. 0 is the number of those classes containing no members.
b. 1 is the number of those classes containing only one member.
c. 2 is the number of those classes containing two members, and so on.
6- In these two cases the notion of number is assumed, without defining it, starting
out from the idea of succession (Peano), or of succession in extension (Frege and Rusell),
which would be equivalent because each class contains the previous one.
7- The categorical theory of numbers, on the contrary, starts off from the following
axioms:
a. All numbers form a system.
b. The system of numbers is necessarily expressed by means of propositions.
c. All propositions regarding numbers have form and content: syntax and
semantics.
d. The definition of the system of numbers refers to the form of the propositions
which refer to the numbers, but not to the numbers themselves.
e. Since the definition refers to the form of certain propositions, there is no need
to pose the question of the existence or the ideality of numbers.
f. All the propositions which express a number are built upon three categories:
1- Unity.
2- Plurality.
3- Wholeness.
g. Those categories cannot be defined in isolation because they form part of a
system. The philosophy of mathematics has centered its concerns only on
defining plurality, considering it more problematic. Nevertheless, plurality is
nothing more than a correlate of unity and wholeness, and numbers cannot be
thought of without taking those categories into account; thus, any attempt to
define plurality is a tautology.
8- We can therefore define the system of all numbers by means of the following
axioms:
a. 0 refers to the number that has unity and wholeness, but lacks plurality.
b. 1 refers to the number that has unity and totality, but in which unity and
plurality coincide.
c. Any number different from 0, 1 or the infinite may be defined as a unity and a
wholeness endowed with plurality.
d. Two numbers which comply with the condition of being different from 0, 1 and
the infinite are differentiated only by their plurality.
e. The difference between two numbers differing from 0, 1 and the infinite in their
plurality is not a difference which can be explained by the idea of succession
or extension, but instead by having a different relationship with the categories
of unity and wholeness.
f. A number is equal to itself due to the relationship existing within its unity,
totality, and plurality.
g. Infinite refers to a number which has unity and wholeness, but in which
wholeness and plurality coincide.
9- The systematic theory of numbers is a theory about the form of the propositions
which express the numbers.
10- The systematic theory of numbers and all existing theories of numbers are not
mathematical theories but, instead, meta-mathematical theories.
11- The content of propositions referring to numbers cannot be entirely deduced from
the form of those same propositions, and thus it cannot be assumed, as was maintained by
Frege, following Kant, that the propositions of arithmetic are analytical and a priori (Frege,
1959 [1884]).
12- The propositions of arithmetic and mathematics in general possess form and
content. The content of the propositions of mathematics must be understood as a semantics
which is structured in different fields.
13- The semantic fields of mathematics follow a relationship of intersection, not of
inclusion.
As in the case of numbers, we can apply this theory to the field of ethics.
Propositions and Categories in Ethics

Since the beginnings of ethical reasoning in the Western world, philosophers have
tried to develop all-embracing systems that permit the explanation of each and every aspect
of human behavior taking a small number of principals as a starting point. An example of this
would be the field of geometry in Ancient Greece (Vegetti, 1989).
It is not our purpose here to develop a draft of the history of ethics; however, taking
history as a starting point (Camps, 19881989; McIntyre, 1976), I believe we can say that the
various non-analytical theories of ethics have based themselves on three types of principles
which have been considered contradictory: duty, pleasure, collectivity. These three principles
would be related to two basic notions over which ethical propositions are based, such as the
notions of good and evil two notions without which it is not possible to put forward the
moral propositions, just as it is not possible to put forward the other propositions without the
notions of truth and falsehood.
Ethical theories based on the notion of duty may be either religious or laical,
depending on their metaphysical presuppositions (Murdoch, 1992), and on the existence or
not of non-human legislators: Marduk in Mesopotamia, Zeus in Greece, Yahweh in Judaism,
God in Christianity, etc., but they all give privilege to the notion of duty or obligation, as well
as advocating the need of subjugating every individual to the will of a power whose purpose
is the subordination of individual interest or personal pleasure to the interest or good of
the community, whether it be merely an earthly interest or one conceived as other-worldly,
such as in the case of religious ethics.
Ethical theories based on pleasure do not try to utilize the notion of duty or
submission to a will outside the individual, but they cannot ignore the notion of good and evil,
not even when they try to do so by establishing the equivalence between good and utility or
good and pleasure (Edwards, 1979). They cannot leave aside the notions of good and evil,
needing to establish the equilibrium between personal pleasures and utility and between
collective pleasures and utility. The only pleasures considered to be good are those that can
be compatible with collective pleasures, or those that can increase collective pleasures,
consequently having to exclude all the others. As part of this process of exclusion, it might be
necessary to apply coercive measures with the purpose of adapting the conduct and
interests of certain individuals to the interests of the collectivity. Thus, ethics of a hedonistic
and utilitarian nature, even though they may have been created based on the notions of
pleasure and utility of the individual more than that of the collectivity, continue employing the
notions of collectivity, coercion and duty, although structured in a manner different from that
of the religious or laical ethics based on the notion of duty.
Finally, if we take a third type of ethics based on the notion of collectivity as a

privileged and explanatory instrument, such as the Hegelian ethics (Walsh, 1976), or the
ethics of more sociological or historical orientations such as those of Herbert Spencer
(Spencer, 1978 [1897]), John Dewey (Dewey, 1936) or Edward Westermarck (Westermarck,
1906), and from which more recent attempts at ethical thinking are derived (such as
sociobiology or all the efforts at explaining human behavior based on neurology or
biochemistry), we shall see that, even though some of its authors can often fall into the
naturalistic fallacy (which would exclude ethical thinking), their work incorporates substantial
empirical investigations that attempt to explain how the behavior of those human beings
might be understood as a complex homeostatic mechanism in which there would be an
endeavor to attain the equilibrium of each human collectivity in itself in its interior and in
its relationships with other human collectivities, or with the physical or ecological
environment.
Still, those authors who favor the notion of collectivity continue thinking in the same
terms as other philosophers of ethics, since what they call adaptive behaviors is similar to
what could be acceptable behaviors correct or good because they can generate more
benefits (in other words, more pleasure). These are behaviors that may be imposed by
means of persuasion and, if necessary, coercion, a coercion which would pursue the same
objective: the common good, which, ecologically, would be defined as the equilibrium with the
environment (Ponting, 1992; Diamond, 2006).
Having provided these brief explanations, we can continue by defining the ethical
categories which make the enunciation of the moral propositions possible.
The term ethics refers to a theory or set of theories that attempt to explain human
behavior subjected to rules, or moral behavior, which is a physical or biological behavior
because humans live in a physical world. This behavior encompasses different types of acts
which can be classified and stated more or less formally in systems of propositions that can
be moral or legal. The moral and legal propositions have in common their normative and
binding character, and in certain cases both may impose themselves upon and interfere with
various types of precepts that are neither legal nor moral but, instead, normative, as in the
case of religions.
Those precepts which are neither legal nor moral tend to be of a ritualistic or symbolic
nature, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish among these three fields, especially when
there are religious communities or institutions with ritual and legal systems established and
codified by experts, such as the Jewish rabbis, the Muslim ulama and the Catholic
theologians.
Even so, and in spite of the fact that those three systems may interfere among each
other in their propositions, six categories will always be used to build up the moral
propositions. Nevertheless, for the sake of simplicity, we shall leave aside religious notions
such as pure/impure or sacred/profane, to retain only that which is common to all the ethical
and moral propositions.
Analytical philosophers have rightly pointed out that a special type of proposition
exists those of ethics (Broad, 1930; Moore, 1959). The fact that ethics are built upon a
specific type of proposition different from the propositions of the sciences and to which we
cannot apply the notions of truth and falsehood, does not imply that those propositions lack
content. All ethical propositions have reference. The reference corresponds to the field of
human conduct which can also be described by other systems of propositions using notions
of truth and falsehood, such as biology, ecology or the social sciences.
The ethical propositions, however, can be differentiated from other types of
propositions referring to human conduct by the system of categories upon which they are
built. These categories form an indivisible system, such as the category of quantity. A moral
proposition and an ethical theory can only acquire significance from a complete system.
These categories are:
1- Good and evil.
2- Pleasure and pain.
3- Individual-collectivity.
All ethical theories employ these categories, willingly or not, and they are present in
every moral proposition.
Lets provide an example. The non-eudemonistic theories based on the notion of duty,
whether or not religious, do not in any way rule out the notion of pleasure and pain. Even
when criticizing the corporal pleasures as well as all other worldly pleasures, they cannot
deny the principles of pleasure and pain. They simply transfer them from this world to a
future and hierarchical world, establishing superior and inferior pleasures, using a type of
calculation not too different from the utilitarian-style calculation of pleasure and pain.
Utilitarian ethics, as previously mentioned, employ the notions of good and evil of the
individual and the collectivity, in the same way as collectivity ethics do with the first two
groups of categories.
All ethical propositions are built upon the six categories, which are relative in form but
not in content or reference. The ethical propositions do not refer to anything different from the
physical or biological world, in which all human acts take place; they only confer a particular
meaning to certain types of events that unfold in the world of physics or biology.
Events that take place in the physical world have existence; the propositions that refer
to them do not, at least not in the same sense. Franz Brentano called this property
intentional inexistence (Brentano, 1966 [1930]; 1981 [1933]). If a proposition had the same
existence as the event to which it referred, it would be that same event and not the stated
proposition. In this sense, the old metaphysical realism would be unsustainable.
Propositions in general, and the ethical propositions in particular, can only be stated
based on the existence of something other that the actual proposition and cannot coincide
with it, neither in extension (because a fact or an object cannot be exhausted by a finite set
of propositions), nor by its nature (because the nature of a proposition includes the property
that it cannot exist in the same form as the object it refers to).
According to Frege, a proposition has reference, sense and coloring. The sense of a
proposition is the means by which a proposition incorporates itself into a set or system of
propositions (thus, an arithmetical proposition incorporates itself into arithmetic). The coloring
of a proposition is the property which the proposition has of establishing non-explicit
connections with other propositions of the same system.
We believe that in the two cases we have studied the theory of numbers and the
theory of ethics a new notion should be added to Freges notions, and this would be the
notion of expression which could be defined as follows:
Every proposition has a reference to some type of object (which does not necessarily
have to be physical), sense and coloring. But in addition, within every proposition (regardless
of its type) there is a certain magnitude of expression.
The expression contained within a propositon is related to the mechanisms over
which all types of reasoning is built, and these are associated to different systems of
categories which are rooted in our sensorimotor systems (Lakoff and Johnson, 1992; 1999;
Lakoff, 1992).
Those systems (in which discursive reasoning plays a fundamental role along with
metaphorical reasoning) is where the global sense of the different theories is established,
and of human reasoning in general.
No proposition or system of propositions can exist which establishes the global sense
of human reasoning, or of basic questions of metaphysics and ethics such as the meaning of
life, the world, or the question of immortality (which is simply a way of shifting the questions
of the meaning of life and the world to an imperfect future).
For these reasons it is not possible to pose questions such as if the world can be
explained, or whether or not it is rational, or if within the human world good should
predominate over evil, or vice versa, because good and evil are two categories upon which
the propositions of ethics are built, and not properties of the physical world nor of human
beings as physical or biological realities. Similarly, explainability and rationality are properties
that refer to the sets of propositions, but not to the objects.
Language and the language of morality, knowledge in general, and all types of
scientific theories possible refer to the world and its objects, but they are not the world, nor
do they explain the world, because the world as Kant stated long ago is nothing more
that the idea of reason and not a concept of complete understanding, nor can these subjects
confer any sense to it.
Language, the language of morality, knowledge and the sciences are as a result of
their very nature absolutely outside the world they refer to (otherwise, they would be that
same world). They can only make sense to those who speak, think and formulate those
subjects. Thus, as humans we do not insert ourselves into the world by means of the process
of speaking and thinking, and here the old idealism was indeed partially correct. We are fully
inserted into that same world, whether we want to or not, and this is something which that
same idealism did not want to see.
On the other hand, it could be paradoxically stated that the more we talk, think and
formulate theories, the further we are (if that were possible) from a world in which thinking
and language could never be due to their own definition the objects or properties of that
same world.
Nevertheless, all this be as it may can only be spoken of.
Propositions and Categories of Expression

There is a class of propositions in which the expression shapes the correlation
between expression, coloring, sense and reference in a specific manner. We call them
propositions of expression.
1- To the propositions of expression we cannot apply the notions of truth or falsehood
(Austin, 1962; Searle, 1994).
2- All the arts are created from the propositions of expression. The use of propositions
of expression is basic to the functioning of social life because they are fundamental in the socalled ordinary language or the language of daily life.
3- According to the previous criterion, the propositions of expression can be divided
into two groups:
a. Those united to the development of the action.
b. Those that serve no practical purpose, as is the case of all those developed by
the various arts, which are structured, as explained by Immanuel Kant, around
the concept of finality without end (Kant, 2004).
4- The propositions of expression are indissolubly united to the propositions that allow
for the performance of any type of human action within the physical world. These latter ones
are known as propositions of action and are rooted in our sensorimotor corporal
mechanisms.
5- That same sensorimotor root explains the fact that there are arts in which language
has no role, as in music or in the plastic arts. Nevertheless, we could apply to these arts
with the objective of understanding their way of functioning those categories based on the
propositions of expression of group 3-b.
6- The categories of expression are:
a. Myself-ourselves
b. Exterior-interior
c. Pleasure-pain
All expressive propositions related to the arts and to social action are built upon these
expressions.
7- In order to understand the propositions of expression in case 3-a (united to action)
as well as in case 3-b (the propositions of the arts), we must take into account the fact that
the system of the six categories of expression is developed within two frameworks: the
spatial and the temporal.
8- The spatial framework is related to the corporal rooting of all the categories of
expression, and may function in the case of the plastic arts without being completely
coordinated with the temporal framework. Nevertheless, the spatial and temporal frameworks
although structured differently will always be interrelated in the case of type 3-a
propositions as well as type 3-b.
9- The temporal framework forms the basis of arts such as music, as stated by E.
Gaviln (Gaviln, 2008), but it is always present in all the propositions of expression because
the category myself-ourselves cannot be understood without taking into account the
temporal character of conscience, which is structured upon the system: past-present-future.
10- The triple structure of time is inseparable from the structure of conscience itself,
which, according to Edmund Husserl, is shaped around the notions of retention and
protention, which come together in the formation of identity and self-conscience (Husserl,
2002).
11- The self-conscience of myself is inseparable from the perception of ourselves
(Mead, 1934). This process in addition to taking place within the social world also takes
place within the biological and physical world to which we belong because we are physical
bodies.
12- The interrelation between body and conscience takes place through the double
mechanism of the interior perception of our own body and the exterior perception of the
physical world. Without an adequate equilibrium between these two perceptions, the
existence of conscience is not possible because conscience is based primarily on physical,
spatial and temporal orientation.
13- The basic mechanisms of the functioning of the human body are stimulus and
response, pleasure and pain. Human pleasure and pain, however, is different from those of
other living organisms because it is socially and linguistically coded; thus, the functioning of
pleasure and pain is very complex and can only be partially understood by the various
sciences: the social and human sciences, psychology and neurology.
14- The study of the propositions of expression at the action level is the basic
objective of psychology and neurology, and here the role of linguistics stands out.
15- The study of the propositions of expression in the fields of the arts corresponds to
esthetics and to the theories and history of the various art forms.
The basic expressive functions take place within our daily life, which is a social life.
Those functions may be complemented with the expressive functions performed by means of
the elaboration and perception of the various arts. However, we must keep in mind that the
expressive function of the arts is not their basic function, since artistic expression must be
performed by means of some type of matter sound, plastic materials, language, the written
word so that the work of each author can be socially understood.
The arts do not merely express the feelings of the artists or their public. The arts
describe and analyze that which can be collectively expressed.
A work of art which analyzes and describes one or various feelings or affections may
be utilized in different ways to achieve the expression of its author and of each and every one
of its recipients, ways which are usually of a historical and collective nature and thus change
with the passage of time.
The propositions of expression in the arts can be differentiated from the propositions
of expression in action not only for their lack of practical purpose, but also for their mimetic
character. It could be said that in the perception of the arts, a fiction pact exists between
authors and the public. A pact that, as in the case of the celebration of rituals, allows for the
differentiation of works of art from the objects that we use in daily life by means of the
mechanism of transfiguration which has been analyzed by Arthur Danto (Danto, 2002).
Every art creates its own world with a specific space and social time to perceive it.
That space and time in the arts is integrated within the spaces and times of daily life and the
physical world, but we gain access to them only occasionally as long as we accept the
mimetic pact. No life can be completely transfigured into art, even though some artists have
affirmed this to be so and have even attempted to transform their lives into a completely
transcendental reality. This is impossible not only in the field of art, but also in that other field
in which the objective is even more systematic: the field of religion, a field in which the
objective has led to all kinds of aberrations, as mentioned by Blaise Pascal, a religious
thinker, when he said: man is neither an angel nor a beast, and misfortune has it that
whoever wants to play the angel, becomes a beast (Penses, 329).
The world of expression is inseparable from the world of action and is nothing more
that a part of it. The world of action and expression constitute what Edmund Husserl called
Lebenswelt, a notion of a sociological value which was made evident by Alfred Schutz
(Schutz, 1967).
All the propositions of expression, ethics or science are no more than an aspect or
part of the world of human life and can only make sense and be of significance for humans,
since humans live mainly within the world of action.
Propositions and Categories of Action

Propositions of action are all those which permit the development of ordinary
language. These are the basic propositions of human thought because the other types of
propositions (scientific, ethical or expressive) must be understandable within the context of
ordinary language.
The modern sciences try to define themselves as well-made languages. Those
languages, however, are either conventional or fictitious, or languages of the as if, as Hans
Vaihinger wrote (Vaihinger, 1924). They are included within the framework of ordinary
languages because scientists live within social, institutional, biological and physical worlds
that are real, and they use scientific languages for only a small part of their lives.
There are two types of scientific knowledge: tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is not
only united to complex processes of institutionally and socially established learning, but also
involves the acquisition of physical and intellectual skills and techniques which will never be
stated in the form of propositions.
Those skills and techniques, together with the development of tacit knowledge, are
fully included in the world of human physical and social action, which is built upon the
propositions of action.
1- Propositions of action tend to be of two types (Austin, 1962):
a. Constative.
b. Performative.
2- Constative propositions can be true or false.
3- Constative propositions are based on a system of three categories:
a. Affirmation.
b. Negation.
c. Limitation.
The scientific languages are made up of constative propositions, and their study
corresponds to logic.
4- Constative propositions cannot be isolated from the other types of propositions,
and thus tend to go together at different levels with performative propositions, especially
within the field of tacit knowledge.
5- Performative propositions being basic for action can only be adequate or
inadequate, and within them we can distinguish two classes according to whether they allow
us to initiate or finalize an action:
a. Illocutive.
b. Perlocutive.
6- Performative propositions are inseparable from the field of gestural and body
language, and thus language takes root in the biological and physical world.
7- Within the human physical and biological world, action predominates over
expression, but this action often needs to be stated when it is a question of describing,
analyzing or transmitting skills, or of improving sensorimotor mechanisms.
8- When it is a question of enunciating those mechanisms that permit action over
matter (technique), or over the body itself, propositions of action are developed based on the
following categories:
a. Reciprocal action.
b. Cause-effect.
c. Possibility and impossibility.
d. Necessity-contingency.
9- This system of categories forms the basis of the notion of physical and social
reality, a notion which is inseparable from the notion of conscience, and it is through
conscience that human beings are oriented within the physical world.
A world from which we cannot exit, of which we form only a part, and to which we try
to give some meaning, even if knowing that the meaning, as such, is totally beyond the
world, although for us this meaning may be absolutely necessary because it is the only way
we can integrate ourselves in the world, the only way of forming part of a reality of which we
hope to be more than merely a part, and thus it is often necessary to deny that same reality
and utilize a new type of propositon.
Propositions that Lack Reference

Every proposition must have reference, sense, coloring and expression, regardless of
its nature. Nevertheless, it can be said without fear of falling into a contradiction that certain
types of propositions do exist which lack reference.
1- All propositions lacking reference share the property of being lies.
2- A proposition is said to be a lie whenever the speaker voluntarily or involuntarily
denies a specific reference.
3- Propositions can be of two types: constative or performative. Constative
propositions may be true or false, while performative propositions may be adequate or
inadequate.
4- A constative proposition is said to be a lie when it is not true.
5- A constative proposition may be untrue for two reasons: either because it does not
describe a state of fact, or because it contradicts itself.
6- If the speaker who makes a constative proposition is incapable for whatever
reason of perceiving a state of fact, or does not have sufficient ability to build syntactically
the proposition or propositions, it is said that the false proposition is an error or an involuntary
lie.
7- If the speaker who states a constative proposition wishes to hide a state of fact
which he is capable of perceiving or manipulates the syntax of the propositions with the
intention of deceiving listeners, then the proposition is a straightforward lie.
8- In the case of constative propositions, the lie presupposes the existence of one
speaker and at least one listener.
9- A lie cannot exist without the will to lie, and that always takes place in relation with
another person; thus, it can be said that a lie is basically a social event.
10- The social nature of a lie is the result of the social nature of the language itself.
11- Logic and linguistics tend to forget the social nature of language in their endeavor
to build perfect theories, which due to their very nature must be pure theories. The desire for
systemization of both disciplines can lead to the concealment of the basic facts of the nature
of propositions, such as their social, pragmatic and historical aspects.
12- The truthfulness or falsehood of constative propositions is a subclass of lies, and
not vice-versa, as has been the tendency to believe since the days of Aristotle, who favored
judgment and syllogism over enthymeme, and favored logic over rhetoric.
13- This is so because the possibility of enunciation of true constative propositions
depends on the existence of a common will that makes possible the creation of a social
space which is characterized by the disinterested search for the truth.
14- That space was the school of philosophy in Ancient Greece; in the Middle Ages it
was the university or convent, and in modern and contemporary times the scientific societies
whose fundamental means of expression has been the printed word in its various modalities.
15- Philosophers and scientists tend to confuse those artificial spaces of the truth that
is searched for and reached by consensus with the nature of the human species itself (which
is sometimes defined as the animal endowed with logos, or the rational animal, or the animal
with the gift of speech), usually assuming that the spoken language is basically that of
constative statements.
16- The social spaces for the search for truth have been and continue to be
precarious, fragile and provisional, and can disappear when changing historical
circumstances (economic, political or military) so require. We could thus metaphorically state
that the Republic of the Letters or the Republic of the Noumenon is basically a fiction
which can be tolerated only provisionally.
17- Being that a lie is a social event, we can distinguish between two types of lies:
individual lies, and shared or collective lies.
18- An individual lie is one in which an individual conceals information, creates
fictitious information, or alters logical syntax with the objective of obtaining a benefit from
others.
19- Since societies are based on the existence of hierarchies and on the unequal
distribution of goods, it could be said that lies are consubstantial with the existence of human
societies and even among animals.
20- In animal societies lies do not occur as propositions, but in deceptive strategies
which are essential for survival, as explained by Volker Sommer (Sommer, 1995).
21- In human societies there are spheres that share truths and lies. Thus, it could be
said that a human society can only be built with the help of a common language that lays
down the double space of shared truths and lies at each historical moment.
22- The articulation of the social space of truths and lies is inseparable from the
values of any given society.
23- This is the socially articulated space which permits enunciating a class of
constative propositions that may be true or false, and also makes it possible for the
enunciation of other propositions to take place.
24- This is so, furthermore, because the means of perceiving the world including the
physical world are conditioned by a societys physical and technical resources, as well as
by the vocabulary and syntax of its language, which only makes possible the communication
of a minimal part of what each person perceives.
25- Peoples perception of the physical world and internal perception of themselves
depends in great measure on social learning, where the acquisition of language is
fundamental.
26- For all these reasons, it can be said that from a logical and linguistic point of view,
performative propositions have logical and ontological priority over constative propositions.
27- Performative propositions are rooted within the cognitive psychomotor
mechanisms and within the basic emotional mechanisms that human beings share with other
mammals. These propositions, therefore, may be adequate or inadequate.
Pragmatism is thus correct when considering truth as that which is good for the
thought process, or considering truth as a mechanism of adaptation of an individual to the
collectivity and of the collectivity to the physical medium.
28- We could classify lies into two groups: adequate or inadequate. Adequate lies are
those constative propositions which are socially shared by a specific society at a specific
point in time.
29- Adequate lies are those performative propositions that allow an individual to
maintain control over others, and also those performative propositions which constitute the
basis of political, economic and social values of a group at a specific historical moment,
whenever those values attempt to justify inequality. This is so because the will to lie is always
associated with the search for a personal benefit at a cost to other people.
30- Inadequate lies can be divided into two classes: constative and performative.
31- Inadequate lies in the constative propositions are simply called errors. They tend
to disappear as a result of rebuttal or debate because they are socially and historically
inadequate from a technical, economic or political point of view.
This selective process in the field of constative propositions has allowed the creation
of the myth of scientific progress and the affirmation that the human species would always
advance in the path of the search for truth, in the sense defined by Kant in his essay
Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment (Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist
Aufklrung).
32- Inadequate lies in the field of the performative propositions are those which either
bring about a radical conflict between citizens and their social group, or those that at a
particular moment give rise to economic, political or social conflicts which can only be
resolved by means of the creation of a new consensus of shared truths and lies.
33- Being that in our language we simultaneously handle all types of propositions, we
also combine and superimpose the different types of lies. We can thus establish the following
possible combinations:
a. Adequate performative lies may be associated with true constative
propositions.
b. Inadequate performative lies may be associated with false constative

propositions.
c. Adequate performative lies may be associated with a portion of true or false
constative propositions.
34- Whether a performative lie is adequate or inadequate does not necessarily
depend on the proportion of true or false constative propositions that go along with it, but on
the success obtained generating a consensus between two or more persons.
35- When speakers who are lying find success in creating a consensus around their
lies, they establish control over others which they will use for their own benefit.
36- When speakers who lie do not find success in creating a consensus around their
lies, they fall into a socially unfavorable position that can end up with marginalization and
loss of prestige.
37- When speakers who are lying fail socially, they will have to readjust their conduct
and language within the framework of socially shared truths and lies with the purpose of
social reinstitution. If they succeed, they will be able to once again produce adequate
performative statements; if not, they will be socially handicapped.
38- Inadequate performative lies are a result of the following:
a. Stating false constative propositions.
b. Stating inadequate exertive propositions (derived from the exercise of power).
Exertive propositions are not credible unless the speaker holds a certain level
of authority.
c. Stating inadequate perpetrative propositions (which refer to actions that the
speaker will be unable to perform).
d. Stating propositions related to a social conduct which may signal the
beginning or end of an inadequate action that the speaker is unable to
perform.
e. Stating propositions in which speakers inadequately explain their reasons
because those are not socially shared reasons.
39- When speakers lie inadequately in fields a, b, c, d and e, we say they are
suffering from delusions; when they do so adequately, we say they are leaders.
40- A delusion is nothing more than an inadequate system of truths and lies that are
not socially shared. Speakers who hold on to such systems have been traditionally
considered to be mentally ill. On the other hand, a socially shared delusion becomes the
basis of a social group or even a whole political system, and this is what Marx called an
ideology.
41- The speaker who states a delusion tends to end up being a victim possibly after
having first been a master as happens in the case of paranoia.
42- The speaker who states an ideology becomes the founder of a religious or
political system, and in some cases of both as Sigmund Freud pointed out.
43- There are several spheres within which it is necessary to create constative and
performative statements which are necessarily lies. Those are the spheres of art, religion,
and personal relationships of an affective nature.
44- Affective relationships, as well as religion and the various arts, share the need of
using the imagination for creating a world of fiction.
45- The creation of a world of fiction, thanks to the use of the imagination in verbal or
body language, or in the different plastic and artistic languages, is what allows the creation of
feelings, without which human beings could not live.
46- The search for feelings, therefore, could be thought of as a system of adequate
lies in which constative and performative propositions achieve a certain equilibrium.
47- The use of lies is necessary in the search for feelings. Nevertheless, there are
differences between various types of lies (in regards to their power as well as to their social
extent):
a. The lies constative and performative which provide us with the meaning of
life that each of us creates for ourselves and are only partially shared by our
closest social group, in which each ones lies and illusions are mutually
recognized by all the others, but with no pretensions of having them
recognized outside the group.
b. The lies and fictions which characterize all the arts and are the object of study
of esthetics, and which can be understood under the Aristotelian concept of
mimesis, or the Kantian concept of finality without end. These lies require a
social complicity that may be, and aim to be, very broad, but will always be
considered a provisional fiction within the space and time of daily life; in other
words, they will always be seen as a game, an example being the lies of
religion, systematic theology and great political ideologies which demand
unconditional acceptance, as in the case of the individual delusion, but that,
unlike individual delusion, achieve their goal by means of the imposition of
power and the creation of a consensus.
48- The field of ideologies and theologies is where adequate lies have achieved their
greatest success.
49- Ideologies and theologies require the enunciation of multiple false constative
propositions which will never be subject to a test or protocol that may bring about their
rebuttal. Those propositions, however, become accepted due to the simultaneous use of
force and authority and the generation of a consensus.
50- The false constative propositions of ideologies and theologies cannot be rebutted
because they do not refer to any fact or object found in this world. If they did, they would be
in danger.
51- The false constative propositions of ideologies and theologies could be said to
share the following characteristics (which continuously set them up against the ordinary
rebuttable propositions). To understand this, it will first be necessary to establish certain
definitions:
a. With the term world we refer to all the objects and states of fact that have
the common property of existence. Ideologies and theologies maintain,
however, that there can be an existence external to the world, thus
contradicting the definition of the world itself, and forcibly granting it a dual
structure which is neither rebuttable nor perceptible.
b. Every existing being belongs to the world, and constative propositions can be
enunciated regarding this being. There can be no existing being external to
the world, unless we accept the existence of a dual world.
c. The existence of a dual world is inconsistent because if such a world existed,
then, according to Plato, the authentic world could be nothing more than copy
of that other imaginary world. It would be like saying that the world, which by
definition can only be one, is actually double.
d. For that same reason, it cannot be asserted that God, the gods, or those
beings described in various mythologies and theologies throughout history
could possibly exist apart from the world.
e. The existence of a being or an object is not a predicate that can fit into its
own definition, but the property possessed by objects and the states of fact
that belong to the world.
f.
As a result of the above reasons, theologies and ideologies cannot be stated

in constative propositions. If they are stated in constative propositions, it can
only be through the creation of systems of lies for the purpose of justifying
some type of domination. Nevertheless, theologies and ideologies cannot
renounce to being formulated as systems of constative propositions because
if they did, they would not be able to claim their unquestionable validity.
52- Ideologies and theologies, however, have existed and continue to exist as
linguistic facts. Thus, we can state that theologies and ideologies are real linguistic facts.
53- The reality of theologies and ideologies is not derived from the constative nature
of their enunciations (since they are all necessarily false), but from the adaptation of their
performative statements.
54- The performative statements of ideologies and theologies are adequate in two
ways: individually and collectively.
a. They are individually adequate as long as they help give sense to peoples
lives, a sense which is not possible to achieve without the creation of an
illusion or a lie.
b. They are socially adequate because they have been essential historically for
structuring systems of political domination and economic exploitation.
55- The performative enunciations of ideologies and theologies can be adequate
when they allow for the expression of basic human feelings (love and hate, fear and anguish,
anger and compassion, happiness and sadness) by means of rites, texts or various arts.
56- Human and religious feelings in general are neither true nor false, only adequate
or inadequate. Those feelings are not generated in a vacuum; they have a social nature and
consequently form part of the social networks of domination and power.
57- In the life of the individuals and of small groups and within the sphere of the
different arts, it is not possible to impose the feelings and tastes of one individual over a
whole collectivity, or force an entire society to accept a particular fiction as artistic. Art is, by
its very nature, a free game.
58- Theologies and ideologies, however, impose and induce certain types of
sentiments among a collectivity, forcing large groups of people to accept false systems of
constative propositions.
59- Ideologies and theologies have thus been and continue being essential
instruments for establishing economic, social and political domination, since they not only
force a collectivity to comply with all sorts of obligations, but also attempt to control the
perception which individuals have of themselves, and to control their feelings and thoughts.
60- Ideologies and religions are inseparable in different ways and proportions
from the human condition, a condition where illusion always reigns supreme over reality, a
condition where thought and language are no more than a minuscule part of the physical and
biological life, a condition where feelings have always been and will continue being the basis
of thought.
61- A condition, finally, where some human beings attempt to capture the world and
speak about it to delude themselves into thinking that they can abandon it, at least
momentarily, finding it impossible to comprehend how they can be outside and inside that
world and outside and inside themselves at the same time.
62- A condition in which it is difficult to comprehend how everything we think refers to
something external will always end up referring to ourselves, since there is no one outside
who can confirm it or deny it.
On the Impossibility of Comparing Expression and Reference

1- Every proposition takes place with an act of speech, and every thought with and
act of thinking. Nevertheless, it is necessary to distinguish the act of speech from the content
of the proposition, and the act of thinking (noesis) from the object of thought (noema).
2- Along the course of the history of Western philosophy, however, the attempt has
been made to equate the act of speech with the whole array of all the possible propositions,
and it has even been considered possible to capture by means of language and thought the
essence of everything considered real.
3- That was the essence of realism and later of materialism, two conceptions of
philosophy which in their appeal to the non-linguistic components of philosophy and the nonsubjective components of thought, ended up believing that the language of philosophy or
science could absorb the exterior reality.
4- This occurred because those philosophical currents just like the spontaneous
conceptions of science start out from the implicit principle which states that it is possible to
say everything and to exhaust reality by means of language, believing that if it was not so,
speech and self-expression would be annulled.
5- Self-expression, or the ability to speak and consequently to think, characterizes the
speakers meaning of life.
6- We must make a distinction between the sense of a proposition and the speakers
meaning of life. What both have in common is that they allow for the connection of one
proposition with other sets of propositions, thus fully capturing the value of the reference. But
while in the case of an isolated proposition the connective value only allows for the
establishment of the relationship between that specific proposition and others, in the case of
the speakers meaning of life it is that same capacity of connection between propositions
which makes the speaker feel he or she has the ability to talk, i.e., the linguistic competence.
7- According to Karl Bhler, all speakers structure their language around a deictic
nucleus (Bhler, 1999). The nucleus is itself structured in two ways: egocentric and
topomnesic.
8- A deictic egocentric structure refers to the fact that speakers always speak situating
themselves in space in an oriented manner and fully conscientious of that orientation.
9- A deictic topomnesic structure refers to the fact that speakers position themselves
in time as well as in space.
10- The deictic egocentric structure explains the structure of propositions built upon
the subject-predicate relationship.
11- The topomnesic structure explains the importance of tense in language
concerning verbs as well as adverbs.
12- All language is exterior to the speaker, which does not mean that language is an
absent structure, nor that language speaks through the subject as a ventriloquism as once
thought by structuralism.
13- Speakers handle language as a tool that allows them to adapt to reality with the
purpose of biological and social survival. Thus, Aristotle defined humans as zoon lgon
chon, that is, an animal endowed with speech and, consequently, with the ability to think
and not as an animal who is substantially linguistic or rational.
14- Since language is exterior to the speaker, in each speaker the language presents
itself as something that the speaker can dominate, or that dominates the speaker. The
equilibrium between the speakers mastery of a language and the languages mastery over
the speaker guarantees the integration of each speaker into his or her social group and the
possibility of being able to live within it in an adequate manner.
15- When a speakers physical condition allows him to be spatially and temporally
oriented; and once his biological needs and physical security have been guaranteed, he now
feels the need to integrate himself into a social group and find recognition within it. Only
under those conditions can a speaker express himself adequately (Maslow, 1970).
16- Social and historical conditions that inhibit expression bring about a loss or
impoverishment of the language, especially in the area of the cognitive and representative
functions, and a regression of human beings to much more basic biological levels.
17- This can lead to many behavioral and personality disorders, which may radically
deform or even destroy the speakers linguistic ability.
18- The loss of the ability to express oneself brings about the loss of the equilibrium
between the language and the speakers control over the language. The phenomenon of the
speaker being controlled by the language is most evident in schizophrenia (Hirsch and
Weinberger, 1995), where those affected hear voices giving them orders and persecuting
them, this simply being the coming to light of one of the key components of the human
condition. This phenomenon is also present in many other so-called mental disorders.
19- The existence of a hiatus between the speaker and the language, and the dual
relationship of domination and control between language and speaker led Sigmund Freud to
postulate the existence of the unconscious.
20- Freud, however, doubting, as would be logical, the beliefs of his day and social
circumstance, created a metaphysical notion of the unconscious, which he thought of as
being a substantial entity endowed with the properties of the subject of modern European
philosophy (Tubert, 1999; Casals, 2003; Janik and Toulmin, 1973).
21- The loss of the ability to express oneself is directly related to the loss of biological
and social security, and this is the reason why schizophrenia and most of the so-called
mental disorders activate all the neurological mechanisms of fear and anguish (Diel, 1966).
22- The ability to express oneself globally considered together with a general
feeling of security and the satisfaction of the basic physical and biological needs, constitute
the so-called meaning of life.
23- Giving meaning to life at its highest level is similar to being able to manage
the connections between the essential propositions and the control over the language. The
recovery of this ability constituted the basis of psychoanalytical therapy, from which all
current psychotherapies evolved (Ellenberger, 1970), where the essential factors are
language, dialogue and communication.
24- In almost every culture, each person has a proper name.
25- The speaker can add the pronoun of the first person singular to the proper name:
I am x. Although, according to Franz Borkenau, this is an Indo-European construction,
specifically of the Germanic languages (Borkenau, 1981).
26- The use of the proper name together with the pronoun of the first person singular
would be the key to understanding, according to Borkenau, the Western idea of identity and
the birth of individualism.
27- It could, therefore, be assumed that the existence of proper names presupposes
that the expression of the speaker can be objectified with one reference my name is
objectively x, or I am really x, thus making individual identity objective.
28- This is not so, however, because proper names lack significance; in other words,
they possess no reference.
29- If proper names had reference, people could be defined.
30- But people cannot be defined, only described; thus, from a proper name only a
definite description can be given.
31- When we give a definite description of a person, what we are doing is analyzing
the relationship between that person and others within his or her social and historical context
(is the son of, the father of, lives in). For this reason, most onomastic systems require
terms describing the relationships of family, residence, and social roles in general.
32- The existence and possession of a proper name is no guarantee of personal
identity, as Borkenau maintains, but is the key instrument of the individuals membership
within a social group.
33- The possession of a proper name and its use by that community of speakers
which the names holder forms part of is both a key instrument of social recognition and of
the groups control over the individual.
34- The relationship between the individual and his or her proper name is similar to
the relationship between the speaker and his or her language. Each individual has a proper
name, but is at the same time owned or dominated by it because that particular name
can be the key to the individuals social identity.
35- It is not possible to fully objectify the expression and convert it into a reference,
either by the use of a proper name or by inserting the individual into social groups. As Kant
remarked, humans are characterized by their unsociable sociability.
36- That is the reason why other types of instruments have been used with the
purpose of attempting to exhaust the expression and convert it into a reference. That, of
course, turned out to be a mere illusion.
37- Throughout history and throughout the history of philosophy, this same
psycholinguistic problem has been posed in mythological, theological and metaphysical
terms, leading to the creation of complex systems of representations whose common
property was that of being socially imposed lies.
38- The need of equating the capacity of expression with that of exhausting all
possible references, led to the creation of the image of an omnipresent god common to
many mythologies and religions before its formulation as a merely philosophical concept
(Pettazzoni, 1955).
39- An omnipresent god can start out as a god who sees everything and end up
becoming a god who knows everything by being capable of thinking everything and saying
everything that can be said. This is the reason why Aristotle conceived a god whose essence
consisted solely in thinking (Aubenque, 1974).
40- The attempt to conceive an omnipresent god who is more than simply panoptic
as has been the case throughout the history of Greek, Jewish, Christian and Muslim
philosophy has brought about the development of all types of complex systems of theology
and philosophy that end up leading to internal contradictions which can only be saved by
religious or political authority.
41- Thinking about an omnipresent god is nothing more than an attempt at providing
some sense of security for those who speak and those who want to think in spite of all
their uncertainties and limitations; thus, Ren Descartes could only find the guarantee of the
truth of the cogito in Gods existence.
42- Evidently, we cannot say God exists, since existence is not a predicate but a
property that characterizes all objects and all facts that make up the world. Nevertheless, it
will be necessary to affirm that God exists if we want to say that it is possible to speak and
think with certainty.
43- The proposition God exists can be translated into the proposition I can feel
secure, physically and socially, and I can be sure of what I say and what I think. God is thus
conceived as a father, protector and defender (see Tellenbach, 1983).
44- There would be no sense in stating that a speaker who can say everything can
speak, since by stating all possible propositions in all their possible connections, the speaker
would no longer have the need to speak the need to express him or herself a need
without which it is not possible to state the propositions. No one can continue speaking after
having said everything which can possibly be said.
45- In addition, since every speaker speaks from a deictic egocentric and topomnesic
field, it would be a contradiction in terms to conceive a speaker outside time and space,
unless we believe the Platonic fiction of a dual world, with its original and its copy.
46- If it is not possible to conceive a universal speaker, neither is it possible to
conceive a being who thinks in an absolute manner, since the knowledge of everything
cognoscible assumes the cancelation of the authentic notion of knowledge and would lead to
nothing, as Hegel himself noted in his Science of Logic.
47- Thus, the absolute speaker and the absolute thinker two requirements of
theology and metaphysics are nothing but a contradiction in terms.
48- These contradictory propositions, however, could be interpreted as follows: The
fact that there is a being who can know everything and can say everything is the guarantee
that I can think and express myself safely, and consequently feel secure.
49- The conception of a being as a fully existing and omnipresent god capable of
saying everything, diverts the capacity of expression to the reference of the propositions
the one that states the existence of objects.
50- Equating expression and reference leads to a contradiction in terms because
each and every one of the possible propositions has reference, sense, coloring and
expression, even though each type of proposition is generated from its own type of category.
51- The development of that type of association, however, seems to have been
historically necessary, and will continue being so until it is recognized that the value of lies is
inseparable from the nature of the propositions.
52- Lies are necessary for life itself.
53- The lies of every speaker and of small groups of humans are necessary for the
existence of those groups and tend to be assumed by consensus, either by admitting them
as fiction as in the case of the various arts or as shared beliefs.
54- We entertain ideas; we live according to beliefs, wrote Jos Ortega y Gasset
(Ortega y Gasset, 1986). We could thus say that the lie is a consubstantial element of
speakers, since lies can be a fundamental mechanism for adapting to a reality which would
aspire to be stated as a truth.
55- Lies are the denial of the reference.
56- Lies are necessary for making possible the expression of truth, not only because
truth and falsehood are two complementary terms, but also because the reference cannot be
exhausted.
57- Each proposition contains a basic nucleus of reference and differential fragments
of reference, which connect each proposition with other sets of propositions by means of the
mechanisms of sense and coloring.
58- As long as sense and coloring do not constitute full references, the value of truth
cannot be applied to them.
59- Nevertheless, new truths may emerge from them by connecting a true proposition
with others that may also be true as a result of non-formalizable protocols that bring about
the true advance of knowledge.
60- The advancement of knowledge may be accomplished in two ways:
a. By increasing acquired knowledge following an established protocol.
b. By the creation and discovery of new fields of knowledge due to scientific,
philosophic, or artistic creativity.
61- Creativity cannot be formalized, planned or regulated because it is rooted in the
deepest expressive mechanisms of language (Koestler, 1964).
62- We could thus say that scientific, philosophic and artistic creativity being rooted
in the mechanisms of creation of the individual speaker and the social group originates
more in falsehood than in truth.
63- Lies are not a denial of truth, but, on the contrary, truth is only a precipitate of the
lie, as stated by Friedrich Nietzsche in his essay On Truths and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.
64- The most systematic representation of lies when supported by the weight of civil
and religious authority are theology and religion.
65- Religion, like art, may be a necessary lie because it can serve as a mechanism
for the creation of meaning. But since religion can be imposed, it goes from being a
mechanism of expression and liberation into becoming a mechanism of oppression.
66- It could be claimed, as Karl Jaspers did (Jaspers, 1968), that religious ideas and
language are necessary as forms of expression of that which cannot otherwise be said. This
need, however, becomes an obstacle the moment religion tries to become a socially
endorsed institution.
67- All religions, as Henri Bergson emphasized (Bergson, 1932, with Loisys
commentary, 1933), move between two poles: that of free creation and expression and that
of social consolidation and imposition. Their institutional need can therefore be placed in
doubt because as Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out the functions of religion can be
performed by the arts (Schopenhauer, 2003).
68- It must be emphasized that each one of the aspects of the propositions cannot be
reduced to any of the other three. The most extreme case is that of reference and expression
because they are their most extreme poles traditionally indentified with the objective and
subjective worlds.
69- The attempt to objectify the expression is a desperate way of trying to attain
meaning out of individual or collective life, which is moved by the fear of the insecure and the
unknown.
70- The fear of insecurity, pain and death is inseparable from the human condition,
and thus it could be said that a great part of human history has been, and will continue to be,
an endless search for security, pleasure and life through language, contemplation, art,
religion and multiple forms of social life.
71- Nevertheless, we can never manage to feel fully secure, and thus we conclude
this text with the words of a poet who knew how to express fear, insecurity and doubt:
To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, theres the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.
Expression and Silence

1- With the term silence we refer to the absence of any proposition.
2- Since only propositions can have reference, silence lacks any type of reference.
3- For the same reason, silence has no sense or coloring.
4- But we cannot deny the possibility that some type of expression may be possible in
silence.
5- Every proposition is possible due to an act in which a statement is made.
6- The act of stating a proposition and the content of that proposition are not of the
same nature.
7- A propositon has a linguistic nature.
8- A declarative act does not have a linguistic nature because an act is not a
statement.
9- Every declarative act belongs to the set of all possible acts, and thus forms part of
the categories of action.
10- Most possible acts do not have a linguistic correlate. They are, therefore, acts that
are non-predicative or pre-predicative.
11- The performance of any type of act presupposes the existence of a feeling of
certainty.
12- There are two types of certainties: that which is sensitive, and that which is
sensitive and enunciable (Bermejo Barrera, 2005).
13- A certainty accompanied by silence can only be a sensitive certainty.
14- By means of the sensitive certainty it is possible for us to know that we form part
of the world.
15- The perception of being integrated into a totality is called feeling of belonging.
16- Acts of speech are not necessary for the feeling of belonging to take place.
17- Within the feeling of belonging, we must distinguish between two different
aspects: belonging to the world in general, and belonging to the world of human beings.
18- Acts of speech are not strictly necessary for the existence of the feeling of
belonging to the physical world. The same occurs with the feeling of belonging to the
common human world, which Husserl and Schutz called Mitwelt (the world of my
contemporaries) (Schutz, 1932).
19- The common world is the world of lived experiences, which these authors called
Lebenswelt (the mundane lifeworld).
20- Membership in the human world is, therefore, membership in the world of life and
in a common world in which, among other things, language is possible.
21- The common world, being similar to the world of life, is only possible in time.
22- Time in life is a flow. Time in the physical world is not.

23- The flow of time past, present and future come together in the act which
makes possible the feeling of certainty that we are immersed in the time of life, something
which is not possible in the inorganic world (Bermejo Barrera, 2009).
24- If the world of life is a common world, the time of life is also, consequently, a
common human time.
25- According to Schutz, common human time is structured into Vorwelt (the world of
my predecessors) and Folgerwelt (the world of my successors). In other words, the time of
those human beings that preceded us and the time of those human beings who will
presumably follow us.
26- The feeling of belonging in time is one of the classes of certainty and can
therefore be or not be formulated verbally.
27- The feeling of belonging in time, just like the feeling of belonging to the human
world, is structured in circles of greater and lesser magnitude, such as family, place of
residence, and different types of communities.
28- In each and every case the feeling of belonging can be formulated verbally, or
not. However, it cannot be verbally formulated if a feeling of pre-predicative belonging does
not previously exist.
29- Original certainty and belonging do not necessarily have to be stated; thus, it
could be said that certainty and belonging may have some characteristics in common with
silence.
30- We should not consider silence as an entity, only as the negation or absence of all
types of propositions.
31- Silence, thus, cannot be stated as that would be a contradiction in terms but
can be lived and felt.
32- We could, therefore, include silence within the framework of sensitive certainties.
33- Having the certainty that silence exists (and since silence presupposes the
impossibility of acts of speech) is the same as having the certainty that language has an
insurmountable limit.
34- The certainty of the existence of languages insurmountable limit is fundamental
for understanding the nature of language itself.
35- The certainty of the existence of silence lets us distinguish the world (or that
which forms part of the set of all the statements) from the language (or that which constitutes
the set of all the possible statements).
36- Confusing one with the other has been the cause of most of the so-called
problems of philosophy and theology.
37- Most Western philosophies and theologies have systematically tried to identify the
world and the language, or derive the former from the latter (In the beginning was the
word), or the latter from the former, considering language as a physical event.
38- The certainty that silence is the absolute limit of language does not imply that
speakers must be foreign to the world, outside the world, or previous and superior to that
world, in keeping with Platonic tradition.
39- On the contrary, that same sensitive certainty, if considered to be fully
prelinguistic, is the maximum guarantee of belonging to the physical and human world, as
long as no attempt is made to formulate it verbally.
40- The attempt to verbally formulate the certainty that the feeling of belonging to the
world cannot be verbally formulated brought about the existence of mysticism.
41- All mystical formulations are contradictory in terms. By attempting to verbally
express the feeling of belonging of the two types, they end up creating systems of
propositions.
42- But since all propositions must have expression, coloring, sense and reference,
the propositions of mysticism are no more than systems of lies based on the idea that there
can be reference in silence, something which contradicts the definition of silence itself.
43- The certainty of silence and the feelings of belonging that are derived from it, can
serve as feelings of security by revealing the integration of the speaker into the physical and
social world. Those are the feelings of security that mysticism has attempted to formulate
verbally.
44- Mysticism cannot formulate verbally that which cannot be verbally expressed. The
basic feelings of belonging, however, being sensitive certainties, can be sensorially
perceived and expressed by those arts which do not depend on language: music and the
plastic arts.
45- The assertion that music and the plastic arts (which dont require the presence of
verbal statements) can bring about the sharing of those sensitive certainties which can be
sensorially perceived in silence, does not mean that those arts are the supreme forms of
knowledge, and that all knowledge which can be verbally formulated is derived from them.
That was one of the key concepts of Romanticism and of those philosophies which wanted
intuition to take precedence over non-verbal knowledge.
46- This is an error because it presupposes the association of realities which are
completely heterogeneous, such as language and silence, and because in the end those
same philosophies (such as Schopenhauers) attempted to formulate verbally that which
cannot be verbally formulated, as in the case of mysticism.
47- The non-verbal arts form part of the world of the sensitive certainty, and that
explains how the properties of works of art (rhythms, proportions, harmony and beauty) can
also be sensorially perceived with certainty in nature organic and inorganic.
48- From the existence of the arts came the theological and philosophical idea of the
existence of an intelligent being who created nature as an artisan or demiurge. This idea
presupposes the idea that the world can be thought up by a being who masters the language
and plans the creation of the world like an artisan or demiurge.
49- This artisan or demiurge would also be the maximum speaker, the Logos, who
tends to be conceived as being similar to humans, and whose absolute sensitive certainty
coincides with a world, not the world it belongs to, but the world that belongs to it, or that
coincides with it.
50- The error with this concept derives as with all mystic concepts from not
admitting the difference between language and silence and between the language and the
world, as well as from the feeling of insecurity which makes those who formulate these
concepts think that the only way of feeling secure in the world of belonging to it is by
dominating it with absolute power.
51- This is the reason why theology, religions and philosophy have always been
associated with the exercise of power.
52- The only way to avoid falling into this infantile feeling of omnipotence which
derives from the feelings of certainty and belonging is by acknowledging contingency.
53- All sensitive certainty and all physical and social belonging are contingent, since
they depend on the integration of each individual or each group into a specific space and
time.
54- The contingency of certainty and belonging makes the feeling of absolute security
attributed to God an impossibility.
55- We can, nevertheless, do without absolute security, since we only need enough
security for our own condition, which is naturally contingent.
56- In the same way that the world is oblivious to language and that the meaning of
the world belongs to the speakers and is not a characteristic of the world itself, the security of
the speakers (or of whoever feels the sensitive certainty) belongs only to them. And as
contingent beings that they are in space and in time they do not need absolute security.
57- The absolute security in space of a contingent being is unthinkable, since it is a
contradiction in terms, because one part cannot be identified with the whole.
58- Nevertheless, the aspiration towards absolute security in time does exist. We call
this absolute security eternity one of Gods essential characteristics.
59- By eternity we refer to the absolute certainty of whoever feels part of a temporal
flow, of remaining in that flow forever, which contradicts the idea of a temporal flow.
60- We call eternity of the instant the feeling of certainty of belonging to a temporal
flow, due to the suspension or freezing of time itself. The eternity of the instant is one of the
essential characteristics of works of art, verbal or not, which aim to overcome time.
61- The eternity of the instant can also be formulated, as with Nietzsche, in the form
of the eternal recurrence. This theory, however, being a metaphysical theory of religious and
mystical origin, must necessarily be a lie, since it presupposes the attempt to verbalize a
non-verbalizable experience.
62- The eternity of the instant can be perceived with certainty in music and the plastic
arts which seem frozen in time.
63- The eternity of the instant, which requires us to transcend time, shares the
property with silence of transcending that reality where humans live and express themselves
in time: language.
64- The survival in the physical world of a work of art produced in another time by a
person or persons now absent, and preserved within the silence of a physical object which
can be perceived or physically reproduced in the case of a musical interpretation but not
verbalized, forms an essential part of the feeling of the eternity of the instant.
65- The eternity of the instant, however, forms part of the sensitive certainty that takes
place in time. Thus, it could be said that the eternity of the instant is simply one more degree
in the feelings of sensitive certainty and belonging.
66- Those feelings that form part of the eternity of the instant are the ones that can
help human beings find a form of expression in silence, a verbal silence that can allow them
to open themselves up to other forms of sensorial perception such as music (see Gaviln,
2008), plastic perception or the perception of nature.
67- In this manner human beings have tried to feel surer of themselves, closer to
each other and more integrated in a world that is inexhaustible through language and
knowledge.
68- A world about which we may have come to think since it is itself silent that
perceiving its silence and accepting the definite limits of our language may be the final
guarantee that we shall always be integrated in it.
Expression, Pain and Fear

1- With the term pain we refer to the sensitive perception of a state which hinders or
impedes us from belonging to the physical and social worlds.
2- With the term pleasure we refer to the sensitive perception of a state which
facilitates and favors belonging to the physical and social worlds.
3- Pleasure and pain are opposites, but not contradictory. In fact, they are
complementary.
4- Pleasure cannot be conceived of without pain.
5- Pleasure and pain are perceived in time as are all the sensitive perceptions.
6- In pleasure and pain there is always a triple structure: past, present and future.
7- There is no absolute pleasure or pain. Pleasure and pain are always gradual.
8- The transition between the degrees of pleasure and pain coincide with the structure
of sensitive time.
9- Pleasure and pain belong to the world of reference.
10- Pleasure and pain are not a property of the propositions. The propositions can
refer to the states of pleasure and pain. The propositions which refer to the states of pleasure
and pain are the propositions of expression.
11- In the same way that the object which refers to a proposition is different from the
proposition itself, and in the same way that a proposition neither exhausts nor alters the
object or objects which it refers to, the propositions which refer to pleasure and pain are
substantially different from pleasure and pain.
12- Pleasure and pain belong to the world outside of language, to the world that
language refers to. This is the reason why language can never capture them in their totality.
13- Propositions exist which refer to pleasure and pain.
14- The propositions which refer to pleasure and pain have reference, sense, coloring
and expression.
15- The propositions which refer to pleasure and pain have sense and coloring
because the degrees of pleasure and pain follow one another in time and cannot be
expressed univocally.
16- Pleasure and pain are not only temporal systems, but also spatial. This is the
reason why it is necessary to connect their references with their sense and coloring, because
they are the only instruments which can account for the nuances.
17- Even so, in the propositions of expression it is impossible to exhaust the
references as is the case in all types of propositions.
18- This is the reason why pleasure and pain belong fundamentally to the extralinguistic world, the world of silence even though pleasure and pain can be expressed in
language.
19- Through pleasure and pain the speaker is integrated into the physical and social
worlds, but it is also through pleasure and pain how the speaker may become incapable of
integration into those worlds.
20- Pleasure and pain are basically pre-predicative because they are beyond the
limits of language.
21- It is from the pre-predicative level of pleasure and pain that language becomes
possible.
22- Language may not be possible when the speaker cannot find any way to be
integrated into the physical and social world.
23- In the case where a speaker is not integrated into the physical world, the
speakers incapacity for expression is a physical impossibility.
24- In the case where a speaker is not integrated into the social world, the speakers
incapacity for expression is a social incapacity.
25- Nevertheless, it cannot be said that there is a sharp division between the physical
and social worlds because a speaker is a physical being with a social nature, and language
is the quintessential social event.
26- A speakers incapacity for expression depends on the temporal structure of the
speakers sensorial perception because language is above all a physical event, and
language is built from the propositions stated in time time being an essential aspect of the
structure of language itself.
27- A speakers possibility of expression is related to the speakers temporal structure
of pleasure and pain.
28- Since a speaker becomes integrated into the physical and social world by means
of expression, the speakers capacity for expression is correlative to the perception of the
gradual and temporal states of pleasure and pain.
29- The speakers expression refers to the act by which a speaker, upon formulating
a statement, can frame it within a structure articulated on the basis of pleasure in such a way
that the degrees of pleasure predominate over those of pain either at the time of making
the statement or in a near future.
30- Thus it can be said that a speakers general capacity for expression is
synonymous with the speakers degree of integration and belonging to the physical and
social worlds.
31- It is evident that the capacity of expression is correlative with the speakers
degree of integration in the physical and social worlds if we take into account the close
relationship between language and the exercise of power, and the fundamental role played in
every social order by the collective lie in other words, ideology.
32- The relationship between capacity of expression and power is obvious, not only
within the field of the performative statements, but also in the control of aggression and in
verbal defense, which are correlates of aggression and physical defense.
33- A speakers limited capacity of expression is correlative with the speakers limited
social capacity. This is the reason why the highest degrees of domination correspond with
the highest degrees of silence of those who are dominated.
34- When the capacity of expression is completely lost, we can say that the speaker
goes beyond the limits of the social group and even the limits of the human species.
35- A speaker loses the capacity of expression completely when everyone considers
that none of the speakers statements make any sense or refer to anything, and when by
denying a speaker the possibility of speaking, the speakers capacity of expression is also
denied.
36- This can occur in a particular historical moment when one cultures dominant
groups consider that whatever can be said by speakers of other nations, groups, or individual
persons not only lacks sense, but is not even an authentic expression of their own desires.
37- When one culture denies other cultures or other groups the capacity of
expression, it can only do so in a limited manner because those other cultures or groups
consider the internal capacity of expression of their own members to be valid.
38- However, if this is done to one individual or to a group of isolated individuals
within a culture, the denial of the capacity of expression becomes absolute.
39- This has occurred in Western civilization regarding mental illness (Scull, 1993).
40- The statements of speakers suffering from mental illness are not only thought to
lack reference and sense, but they are not even considered genuine expressions of the
speakers states of pleasure and pain.
41- Nevertheless, starting with Freud, a partial attempt has been made to understand
that the capacity of expression persists within the margins of mental illness and statements
lacking sense.
42- An example of this can be seen in Heather S. Ashworths poem, in which the
author a schizophrenic patient at a mental institution tries to make it understood that she
is being denied the capacity of expressing herself and of having feelings:
Hospital Visit
You brought me flowers,
(I saw my grave)
You brought me smiles

(I saw your mock)
You gave advice
(Another plot)
You couldn't stay
(The other world)
You checked your watch
(Changed my time)
You stole my heart
Once, in another life
Not mine
You turned to look, as
You walked away
I stood helpless
Watching you
Heather S. Ashworth, Voices.
Quoted in Gwen Howe, The Reality of Schizophrenia, (London: Faber and
Faber, 1991), p. 174.
43- As defined by Western civilization, mental illness is the most solitary of sufferings.
This illness, however, was once viewed as a spectacle whose characters had not only lost
the capacity to reason and to think, but also the capacity to have feelings and to express
themselves.
44- For this reason, the mentally ill having lost the capacity of expression are left
completely out of the social world, the human species, and even the physical world, which
they are unable to perceive sensorially following standard social norms.
45- The social conception of mental illness serves as a limit that allows us to
understand an essential fact: the impossibility of communicating or sharing pain, something
which has been thoroughly analyzed by Elaine Scarry (Scarry, 1985).
46- Pain cannot be shared because it is pain itself that limits us or moves us away
from the possibility of integrating into the physical and social worlds. Absolute pain is the pain
of the most serious physical illnesses, or of mental illness itself.
47- Pleasure, on the other hand, being a basic mechanism of physical and social
integration, facilitates our belonging to a common or shared world. There may well be solitary
pleasures, which are never well thought of. To speak of solitary pains, however, totally lacks
sense because the solitude of pain is in great measure assumed.
48- We might think that pain can be shared through compassion. It was in
compassion where Schopenhauer searched for the key to all ethics following the teachings
of Buddhism. Compassion, however, is always accompanied by a certain measure of
hypocrisy, as we can see in Heather S. Ashworths poem. This could be because whoever is
feeling compassion is actually glad or feels superior for not being the one who is suffering.
49- There can be no shared pain, only simultaneous pain pain felt by many people
at the same time.
50- In the case of simultaneous pain, a feeling of common belonging can occur, but it
is a feeling of physical belonging and thus basically pre-predicative.
51- Pains can be suffered and can possibly be partially explained verbally. It is
impossible, however, to appreciate them if one has not previously gone through that same
physical experience.
52- A community of people suffering from pain is possible only if the degree of pain is
moderate, or if that pain forms part of the past, or if there is hope that the pain will disappear
in the future. If the pain is intense, forms part of the present, and there is no possibility that it
will go away, a community is impossible.
53- A community of sufferers is a community of people who are no longer suffering or
who hope to stop suffering.
54- All communities are structured by means of a system of shared pleasures,
whether physical (e.g., enjoyment and possession of material goods), or social and
psychological, which are equivalent.
55- Ideologies have been developed that attempt to define all societies as groups that
share and optimize material pleasures: these are the market ideologies. Ethical theories
have also been developed such as utilitarianism which have tried to base the ethical
propositions on a calculation of pleasures and pain which are but a transposition of an ideal
market.
56- Market ideologies cannot be correct because they do not admit the
complementarity of pleasure and pain. These ideologies deny or conceal pain; otherwise,
they would be unable to justify the existence of economic, political and ideological
domination.
57- Utilitarian ethics cannot be correct because they refuse to admit the existence of
pain, its incommunicability, and the possibility that physical and social pain could lead to the
extinction of certain human groups.
58- Within the temporal structure of pain there is a past, present and future. When
pain presents itself as a future possibility, it gives rise to fear.
59- Fear, fright and anguish are three basic psychological mechanisms of every
human being (Christophe, 2005).
60- Fear and fright, whether physical or social, originate from specific threats. When
there is no specific threat and a generalized fear occurs, we can then talk about the
existence of anguish (Diel, 1966).
61- The use and manipulation of fear is a basic mechanism for maintaining political
and social order, whether through physical coercion or by means of language in other
words, by means of ideologies.
62- The use and manipulation of anguish is a basic mechanism of religions and
ideologies and forms the basis of their verbal constructions, which, to be successful, must
develop into socially accepted lies.
63- Political ideologies as well as religions justify the existence of physical and
psychological pain, either by considering it as part of the past, or as something that will
disappear in the future.
64- The mechanism by which we may believe that we must suffer a certain pain in the
present so that it will disappear in the future is called hope, an idea around which some
authors, such as Ernest Bloch, have tried to develop their whole philosophy.
65- There can be three types of hope:
1) Personal hope, thanks to which we believe that the equilibrium of pleasure and
pain will always trend in our favor in the future. This is a hope without which it
is not possible to continue living because its denial deprives us of the ability of
giving meaning to life.
2) Collective political hope, which can manifest itself in emancipatory political
projects, such as Marxism.
3) Collective illusory hope, whose administration is in the hands of theologians
and religious communities which need to create imaginary worlds of credible
lies where all types of hopes can occur in the future in an absolute manner.
However, being illusory worlds, and being that the hopes put on them are
unattainable, those types of hopes can only contribute to an increase in pain.
66- It is consubstantial with the nature of pleasure and pain to not be clearly
expressible verbally. This is so because no proposition can exhaust the reference, and in
particular because of the essentially physical nature of pleasure and pain.
67- Pleasure and pain may be expressed by non-verbal means. The non-verbal
component is greater in the case of pain, due to its non-shareable social nature.
68- Pain is expressed physically through weeping and screaming, both of which are
physical and physiological events.
69- Weeping depends on the existence of tears, which are an essential mechanism
for the nutrition, health and function of the eyes (Lutz, 2001), but pain can be a social event
as well.
70- All cultures across history have recognized and regulated the use of tears in
relation with different types of social events, for example, mourning (Lutz, 2001).
71- There is, therefore, socially admitted weeping that can be classified within the
mechanisms of compassion. But there is also excessive weeping, which is not socially
understood or admitted and can be considered pathological.
72- It is this pathological weeping which reveals, in its pure state, the pain of an
incommunicable physical event.
73- When pathological weeping occurs, its protagonist may be left out of his or her
social group. This would be the case of people who are incapable of assimilating physical or
social pain, such as those suffering from pathological mourning.
74- Weeping is not considered pathological if it is merely the expression of an intense
physical pain, but even in those cases weeping may become socially disturbing.
75- Weeping is considered pathological in its full sense when it expresses feelings
excessively or when it expresses a psychic pain. This is the case, for example, of the
continuous weeping or screaming of the mentally ill.
76- Screams are a pure expression of pain, and this can become socially disturbing.
77- Weeping and screaming are both expressions of the absolute contingency of
human beings.
78- This is so because weeping and screaming, being expressions of pain, show the
total dependency of those who can no longer talk about their suffering, whether physical or
social.
79- Pain and suffering are situated in a specific location in time and space.
80- A person who is suffering wishes to overcome pain in the future, in other words,
wishes to overcome it in time. If the person achieves this, or believes this can be achieved,
the weeping and screaming may serve a purpose and will therefore cease in one way or
another. Otherwise, the weeping and screaming will become endless.
81- Overcoming pain goes hand in hand with the desire to break through the space in
which the body itself is found. The person who is suffering from pain will wish to exit his or
her own body, or will wish that the part of the body causing pain be removed. Pain can be
overcome if we surmount the contingency of time, projecting our hope towards the future.
82- We cannot realistically overcome space and time, but we can do so idealistically
by means of the eternity of the instant, which allows us to feel more integrated in the physical
world through the sensory experience.
83- But the eternity of the instant can only take place within the mechanisms of the
development of non-verbal artistic creation, not in insurmountable pain. Pain can only
contribute to artistic creation when that creation is conceived as a means of overcoming and
cancelling pain.
84- Pain by itself generates nothing.
85- Physical pain the impossibility of overcoming and getting away from it tends to
lead to the destruction of life through illness. When physical pain results in death, that pain
may be socially understood, but neither expressed nor shared.
86- On the other hand, when moral or affective pain is added to physical pain,
expressed through weeping and screaming as in the case of mental illness there is no
possibility of it being socially understood.
87- To the pain and fear that accompany mental illness we must add humiliation and
shame two extreme signs of social rejection which must be endured by those who suffer
the most solitary of sorrows. It seems, therefore, logical that mental illness should result in
the social and physical death of those who suffer it.
88- If physical and social pain result in death, it could be said that death is the final
limit of pain. And if the most extreme pain entails the impossibility of expression, it could be
stated that death itself is the final limit of expression.
89- We could thus conclude that death is the final limit of language.
90- No one has ever spoken from death. Language, however, has never stopped
talking about death.
On the Impossibility of Propositions Lacking Expression

1- Every proposition has reference, sense, coloring and expression; thus, it cannot be
said that propositions lacking expression are possible.
2- Every proposition is singular.
3- Every proposition is different from all other propositions.
4- All propositions belong to a set the set of the propositions.
5- The set of the propositions is a numerable set.
6- A proposition can refer to an object or to another proposition.
7- The set of propositions that refer to other propositions is a subset of the set of the
propositions.
8- The elements of that set have the properties that define the set of the propositions,
but not the set itself.
9- Those same propositions have the properties of the subset of the propositions that
refer to other propositions, but not the subset in itself.
10- With the term world we refer to the set of objects over which it is possible to
elaborate propositions that refer to something.
11- With the term language we refer to the set of the propositions that can be stated.
12- The properties of the propositions that refer to the world are not properties of the
world, but of the propositions themselves.
13- The properties of the propositions that refer to language are not properties of the
language, but of the subset of the propositions that refer to other propositions.
14- The world cannot be stated as a whole beyond the subset of the possible
propositions.
15- Similarly, language cannot be stated as a whole beyond the subset of the
propositions that refer to other propositions.
16- Propositions that refer to the world cannot exhaust the world.
17- Similarly, propositions that refer to language cannot exhaust the language.
18- The world is not the same as the set of propositions that refer to it, because the
world is neither a proposition nor a set of propositions; instead, it is what the propositions
refer to.
19- Similarly, language is different from the subset of the propositions that refer to
other propositions because language is not a proposition, nor is it the subset of the
propositions that refer to language; instead, it is the object those propositions refer to.
20- In the same way that the world cannot be encompassed by the set of propositions
that refer to it, language cannot be encompassed by means of the subset of the propositions
that refer to other propositions.
21- Philosophers have tried to encompass the totality of the world, just like
grammarians have tried to encompass the totality of language (Pinker, 2007).
22- The desire of grammarians and philosophers to encompass the totality of
language and the world can only be understood as their own expressive need.
23- To say that the totality of the world or the language is encompassable is merely to
express the need for security.
24- Since all people can and tend to feel insecure, and since philosophers and
grammarians are people, they consequently create two fictions which would be their own
correlates:
a. Thought, intellect, the world of ideas, or God as a thinking being.
b. Language, the speaker in pure form, discourse, or God understood as logos.
25- Paradoxically, these are the two fictions through which it is sought to cancel the
expressive capacity of language and the expressive component of every proposition.
26- To construct these two fictions it is necessary to establish a series of dichotomies
which attempt to overcome the hiatus between the singular and the universal, between that
which is contingent and that which is necessary.
27- In the construction of those dichotomies, the search for the universal and the
essential implies the denial of the numerable character of the set of the propositions.
28- The fact that the set of the propositions is a numerable set implies that the
propositions must have a contingent character.
29- To think that an intellect could capture and exhaust the essence of the world or
that the language could be encompassed in its totality would only be possible by means of a
fiction which would overcome the singularity and the contingency of the human condition.
30- This is the reason why after all the attempts at formulating the various possible
forms of thought or absolute languages whether religion, philosophy or science it is
necessary to appeal to a divine figure similar to what the major religions have called God.
31- In the creation of those fictions of wholeness, overcoming the singular and the
contingent has only been possible through the denial of the human body because it is in this
body where the greatest degree of singularity and contingency is evident.
32- To deny God and integrate the body into the wholeness of the chain of life or the
wholeness of the universe is likewise a fiction where the only thing that changes are the
references of wholeness.
33- For a proposition to be possible, that proposition must be enunciable by means of
an act.
34- The act of enunciation is singular, just as the proposition which is made possible
within it.
35- It is not possible to state all the propositions at the same time and therefore
exhaust the language and capture the world in its entirety. This has been the exclusive
property of the Greek, Jewish, Christian or Muslim God, and it was taken up by philosophy
and science starting in the seventeenth century. In any case, it is nothing more than a fiction
or an adequate lie.
36- The enunciations are singular and their singularity is marked by space and time.
Every enunciation is made from a particular place and at a definite moment.
37- Since every enunciation is marked by space and time, every enunciation is made
from within the world.
38- Since every proposition depends on one enunciation, all the propositions which
refer to the world even though they are different from it are within the world.
39- Similarly, all the propositions which refer to language even though they are
different from it are part of the language.
40- Every enunciation, with its corresponding proposition, is singular and contingent.
The enunciations expressive nature derives from its contingent character (spatially and
temporally delimited).
41- That which situates us in a contingent manner in space and time is our body.
Thus, we could say that our body is the place from where we speak.
42- We cannot speak from outside our body. There is no place from where to speak
outside space and time because all places are situated in space and time. Nevertheless, that
sort of no-place has been believed in and has been called the soul since the times of
Ancient Greece.
43- To think of the soul as being outside of space and time is a contradiction, and thus
it has been necessary to conceive a different place for the souls, a world that would be
parallel to the world. This is a needless duplication. It is, however, understandable that such
a world should have been conceived if we consider the soul to be an adequate lie.
44- Since enunciations are situated in space and time which are physical elements
and since we are in a place called the body, we can therefore say that without the body no
enunciation or proposition would be possible.
45- Enunciations and propositions are situated in the body by their expressive
component.
46- It is commonly believed that a propositions expressive component limits the
proposition, and knowledge is only possible if we transcend the singular. This, however, is
not so.
47- A propositions expressive component is what makes the proposition possible,
and it does not limit it because the singular character is an essential characteristic of all the
propositions, which are in the same manner singular and limited in their reference, sense and
coloring.
48- Thus, the denial of the expressive character of the propositions can only be
understood as an expressive need.
50- To deny the expressive character of the propositions and seek a world in which
the propositions are free of expression and can overcome space and time i.e., overcome
contingency is nothing more than an expression of insecurity.
51- The denial of the expressive character of the propositions is a way of fighting fear
through the creation of lies, whether adequate or inadequate, depending on each particular
case.
52- The search for security by means of the denial of the expressive character of the
propositions is sought through the establishment of an imaginary control over the world and
the language.
53- By thinking that the whole world is enunciable in a closed system of perfect
propositions, one may believe to have gained control of the world in such a way that one who
thinks to be no more than a part of the world, turns the world into one of the thinkers own
parts by making the world fit into the thinkers mind.
54- Similarly, speakers who believe they can exhaust and comprehend the whole
language, are attempting to encompass the language in the subset of the finite propositions
that they are capable of stating, obviating the fact that the subset belongs to a more
extensive set in which other subsets can be continually generated.
55- This confusion, which can be intentional or spontaneous, inverts the terms
regarding finitness and infinitness.
56- Since the set of the propositions is numerable, the number of the propositions
must be finite.
57- The number of the propositions depends on the number of enunciations or acts of
speech, which can continuously increment the number of possible propositions.
58- The number of acts of speech, however, depends on the expressive needs of the
speakers. We could thus say that the number of enunciable propositions depends on the
degree of expressive intensity of a speaker or of different groups of speakers.
59- As long as speakers exist, we could say that the possibility of speaking continues
to exist as well. Consequently, the capacity of expanding the number of enunciable
propositions theoretically to infinite is nothing more than the reflection of the continuous
character of desire, in this case the desire to speak.
60- But the desire to speak depends on singular speakers situated within specific
spatial and temporal frameworks. We could thus say there is a paradox in that the desire for
the infinite is a characteristic limited to finite beings.
61- If an infinite and perfect being existed, that being would have no desire to be
infinite, because to have a desire would mean that this being was lacking something, which
would be contradictory with this beings infinite characteristics.
62- An infinite being already possesses everything and therefore desires nothing.
Thus the need to cancel a desire, denying the expressive component of the propositions, is
nothing more than the expression of a desire the desire to have no desire.
63- The desire to have no desire, however, is only possible when one already has
everything one desires. We could thus say that the denial of desire is pure fiction. The denial
of desire is nothing more than an adequate lie which can be socially shared within the
framework of certain religions or philosophies.
64- The denial of desire is one of the possible ways of averting the frustration caused
by the impossibility of fulfilling a desire. Since the possibility of the frustration of a desire
produces fear, we could say that the denial of a desire is an attempt to ward off the possibility
of the emergence of fear, taking refuge within a secure place by creating an adequate lie.
65- The possibility of the existence of language depends on the expressive needs of
the speakers. It is thus the inexhaustible desire to speak that can lead us to believe that our
language can say it all, and, consequently, that our thoughts can capture and exhaust the
essence of the world.
66- That desire, however, is fragile, as fragile as the existence of those who speak.
67- Those who speak do so from inside a language, and within the framework of the
numerable set of possible propositions. Those who speak do so, moreover, from a place
within the world.
68- The language of those who speak is essentially the expression of their desire to
speak. Without the desire to speak there would be no language.
69- Speakers cannot transcend their desire to speak.
70- Language is only possible as long as there is a shared desire.
71- The desire to speak does not refer to anything because reference is only one of
the four properties of the propositions. The desire to speak remains with the speakers.
72- The desire to speak is inexhaustible. The number of the propositions is not,
because they form a numerable set.
73- The desire to speak is immanent: it is the desire of one or many persons. Thus,
we cannot say that by speaking we may transcend desire.
74- Through the act of speaking desire is not transcended; it is merely shared.
75- Shared desire as in the case of individual desire is a singular desire, limited in
space and time. We could thus say that collective desire does not transcend the individuals
who have a desire.
76- Hence, there is no language beyond desire. Hence, there is no language beyond
the world.
77- Everything that all the speakers could say will remain immersed within the limits
of the speakers themselves, because language is not a property of the propositions of
thought, and thought is not one of the properties of the world.
78- Everything that all the speakers could say remains immersed within lifes
contingent world.
79- We cannot think beyond life; we cannot speak before or after life.
80- Thus, in the same manner that the world is neither enunciable nor thinkable, that
which is beyond life is not thinkable or enunciable either.
81- There can be no language or thought beyond life.
82- There can be no thought or language beyond death, because there are no secure
places in any world that is not the world, since the world by definition is only one.
83- Hence, the dead do not think, and there are no pure spirits who speak and think
beyond desire, nor someone who does not desire anything because he or she already has
everything, and who has nothing to say or to think because he or she has already said or
thought of everything simultaneously. There is no celestial republic for souls, philosophers or
scientists capable of transcending space and time.
84- Everything that can be said is fragile.
85- Everything that can be said is transitional.
86- Everything that can be said depends on the existence of the speakers and can
only be of significance among them.
87- Beyond everything that can be said all that is left is absolute silence and the
absolute impossibility to think.
On the Propositions that Express Expression, or the Internal Language

1- All the propositions express something.
2- Within a proposition it is not possible to express something if that proposition does
not have reference, sense and coloring.
3- All the propositions must be stated with an act of speech.
4- Only through an act of speech is it possible to integrate into one unit the four
elements that make up any proposition.
5- An act of speech is an event situated in space and time; therefore, it is a contingent
event.
6- Being contingent events, some acts of speech are possible and others are not.
7- An act of speech is determined by two types of conditions: those that depend on
the speaker and those that depend on the possible receptors.
8- The enunciation of a proposition in an act of speech constitutes a process of
objectification of the speakers will. That will, however, can never be exhausted by speaking.
9- There are two types of acts of speech, giving way to two types of propositions:
possible acts and impossible acts.
10- Only in the effective acts of speech is the proposition fulfilled and thus constituted
as such.
11- Nevertheless, there must be a greater number of possible acts of speech than
effective acts of speech, since, by definition, possibility must always be more extensive that
effectivity.
12- The set of possible acts of speech is what Western philosophy has denominated
thought.
13- By thought we are referring to an internal language in which the speaker
addresses himself or herself.
14- The internal language exists in all human beings of every culture, as history itself
will attest.
15- The internal language is also in contemporary clinical experience a
fundamental element for understanding mental illness.
16- There are two types of internal language: the one which is historically and
culturally accepted and the one which is considered to be outside the parameters of
normality. Thus, for example, in the contemporary Western world hearing voices is a
definite sign of schizophrenia (Szasz, 1970; 1976); but in the early part of the twentieth
century William James wrote that in many cultures it was an element that formed part of an
acceptable religious experience (James, 1986).
17- The internal language would not be possible if the speaker didnt designate
himself or herself with a proper name.
18- In the internal language the speaker appears both as a reference who is
objectified by means of a proper name and as an expression.
19- In the internal language the speaker addresses himself or herself without going
through the propositions within a specific spatial and temporal framework.
20- This is the reason why the internal language or thoughts are considered to be
subjective, and this is what brought about the distinction in Western philosophy between the
subject and the object.
21- Nevertheless, the internal language is as objective as the external language. The
difference between them is the difference between possibility and effectiveness.
22- Possibility and effectiveness are two categories that cannot exist in isolation;
consequently, the notion of reality must be applicable to them, and this is the reason why
these two types of languages are equally real.
23- William James called the internal language flux of consciousness or flux of
thought (James, 1989). Its existence is inseparable from human life itself.
24- The internal language has the same structure as the effective language. The only
difference between the internal language and the effective language is the manner in which
each of them processes the discursive or metaphoric lineal fluxes.
25- In our language, a lineal discursive flux and a parallel processing of information in
a metaphoric manner take place simultaneously, as explained by Lakoff and Johnson (Lakoff
and Johnson, 1980, 1999; Lakoff, 1990). By making a propositon or chain of propositions
effective, we greatly limit the metaphoric field by choosing some of the possible meanings
and excluding others.
26- The discursive and metaphoric processing of the language are inseparable and
neither is more real than the other, in the same way that the internal language is no less real
than the external language.
27- Philosophers and scientists, however, since they live in the textual world, have
favored discursive thinking over metaphoric thinking.
28- The same occurred in psychiatry, where, starting with Freud, the metaphoric field
fell under the domain of the unconscious, understood as a subject who spoke anchored in
metaphor due to its constant use of the principles of condensation and displacement.
29- It is necessary to integrate the internal and external languages for understanding
the nature and limits of language.
30- In the internal language (as opposed to the external language) speakers
endeavor to express themselves by objectifying themselves, which is almost always
inevitable, and this is an essential part of the functioning process of our psychic life.
31- In the internal language, the objectification of the speaker remains in a fluid state
and disappears temporarily as the propositions expressed are made effective. Only when a
speaker cannot express himself in a fluid manner, or cannot express himself in any way
whatsoever, can that objectifying bring about the fracture between the speaker trying to
express himself and the speaker who hears himself speak.
32- This is what occurs in cases of delirium, schizophrenia and dreams Freuds key
analytical material.
33- Contrary to what Freud believed, however, dreams are not a language parallel to
the spoken language. They are, instead, a chaotic and fluid state to which the dreamer tries
to give fragmentary sense following a discursive line, as shown by recent studies (Hobson,
2004; 1994).
34- Dreams are a normal delirium. The delirium is only a dream in wakefulness. The
problem, then, is not the delirium, but to know why one is delirious while awake.
35- Many civilizations across history have culturally and religiously codified deliriums.
We can thus say that an essential field for the analysis of language is the analysis of the
languages of religion.
36- It is in the languages of religion that a speaker objectifies himself as a reference
in a process, which Ludwig Feuerbach and subsequently Marx called alienation (Feuerbach,
1995).
37- In the internal language of religion the speaker can establish a dialogue between
himself conceived as an expression, and himself conceived as a reference.
38- Nevertheless, in that same religious language the speaker conceived as a
reference must build an absolutely objective reference, and that objective reference would be
the figure of the divinity itself, in which the speaker, by objectifying himself, goes outside
himself, becomes estranged from himself, and alienates himself.
39- The objectifying of the speaker as a reference entails the substitution of the
speakers proper name for the name of a divinity or a saint who is considered real. This is
achieved through the creation of a system of adequate lies.
40- Much of the history of adequate lies can be found in the history of religions.
41- In the history of religions we can only consider real that which is subjective, and
we can consider false that which is or claims to be objective. In the history of religions
only the internal language is objective, while the external language is subjective. Thus, we
can say that all religious feelings are real and all religious ideas are false.
42- There is an obvious parallelism between the process of alienation which exists in
the language of religions and the split between the speaker as a being who tries to express
himself, and the objectification of the speaker in his name or in that of other imaginary
characters. That is the reason why the term alienation has been used to describe mental
illness and also as a characteristic of religious thinking.
43- Dreams and wakeful deliriums basically express feelings and sensations, not
ideas or thoughts. The predominant feelings in dreams are fear, anger, pain, and (to a much
lesser degree) pleasure, with sexual pleasure being a very minor component, as opposed to
what one might think reading Freud (Hobson, 2004).
44- Fear, anger and pain are also the basic component of all religious feelings. This
can be seen analyzing the protective and aggressive roles of the gods of the main religions,
and the importance placed on rituals of suffering, pleasure and happiness.
45- For all these reasons we can say that the internal language basically utilizes the
categories of expression.
46- The categories of expression (which will always be united to the other categories,
though on a secondary level) have priority in internal language. Furthermore, just as it
happens in spoken language, the basic human feelings and the use of silence play a
fundamental role in internal language as well.
47- Silence is an essential component of internal language, because this language
does not manifest itself with sound and is not contingent upon acts of speech.
48- This is the reason why in certain literary languages, silence which is associated
with the internal language may seem to be a more profound type of language than the
language objectified in the propositions.
49- This is also the reason why in many religions from Antiquity to the present
conversation with the gods takes place in silence, although prayers also seem to be
objectified in propositions and can be recited in specific occasions and in special ways
(Aubriot-Svin, 1992).
50- Prayers which are verbally or textually represented and are socially and
historically accepted, serve as a form of expression of religious feelings, but are at the same
time adequate lies because they form part of a specific religious socially shared vocabulary
and language.
51- Even so, silence, secrets, remote locations, the night or specific moments of the
day tend to be associated with religions when pointing out which are the circumstances and
the places that may favor the development of the internal language, which is also commonly
known as meditation or self-immersion, and over which great works have been written,
starting with Saint Augustines Confessions.
52- When in addition to the constant use of the internal language it becomes
necessary to delve deeper within it but the cultural channels for doing so are not available,
mental disorders can occur. Thomas Stephen Szasz wrote, If you talk to God you are
praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia, which expresses this idea very well in
the secularized society of 1970s America.
53- The need to delve deeper into the interior language tends to be associated with a
lack of verbal expression by means of the propositions. That is the reason why many
intellectuals, religious persons and mental patients search for retreats.
54- When the pressures of personal and social circumstances are excessive, a
rupture may occur between the interior and the verbal languages.
55- This can result in either the loss (temporary or permanent) of the capacity of
expression, or the creation of a verbal language in which the use of reference, sense and
coloring of the propositions are shared by no one outside the speaker. We have, thus, a
system of inadequate lies, and in this case we would be witnessing a delirium.
56- The individual and collective delirious languages in other words, the systems of
adequate or inadequate lies are an integral part of language itself.
57- We can thus say that the existence of the internal language is a totally objective
fact.
58- Since the internal language is an objective fact, there is no sense in denying its
existence.
59- Stating the existence of the internal language does not imply accepting any
specific philosophical doctrine, such as those that came about based on the idea of the
cogito, the subject of knowledge, Geist or conscience.
60- All the philosophies built upon language have been partially based on the
incomprehension of the existence of the internal language.
61- Freuds fiction regarding the existence of the Ego, the Super Ego and the Id
necessary at its moment reflects that same kind of incomprehension of the reality of
language and human life. A lack of comprehension resulting from the philosophies of the
subject, and the inability of the psychiatry of the time to understand mental illness.
62- The European philosophies of the subject, psychoanalysis and the psychiatry of
the twentieth century have systematically mistaken verbal language with total language, and
language in general with reality itself.
63- These philosophies and disciplines have not only based themselves on that
mistake, but have also shown clear signs of fear of the reality of human life and the feelings
on which it is based.
64- This fear has gone together with the development of every form of domination
over groups, people or cultures, considering them the personification of passion and the lack
of rationality, a domination that has been carried out by means of penal repression, medical
control, or processes such as colonization or implementation of various systems of political
domination.
65- For those types of dominations to be possible, it has been necessary to create
fictitious spheres of pure language and thought, in which the command of the different types
of verbal languages could serve as a bastion and provide security to certain groups of
thinkers and writers: theologians, philosophers, physicians and scientists.
66- By denying the existence of the internal languages, they were all able to dispel
the fear they had of themselves, projecting outwardly the internal world from which they
would have liked to escape.
67- The internal language marks the limits of the verbal language because it is
previous, simultaneous and subsequent to it.
68- It cannot be said, however, that the internal language is the absolute limit of
language, since both languages, internal and verbal, are always simultaneous.
69- Nevertheless, since the internal language is much more fluid than the verbal
language, we could conclude by saying that within the internal language and silence is where
we can sometimes feel most free, as conveyed by the verses of Hlderlin and Schiller with
which we chose to begin our text.
Coda
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Christina Rossetti
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The Limits of Language Propositions and

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THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE:

PROPOSITIONS AND CATEGORIES

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

Ich verstand die Stille des Aethers,

I understood the silence of the Ether,

Der Menschen Worte verstand ich nie.

But the words of mankind I never understood.

Da ich ein Knabe war

When I was a Boy

In des Herzens heilig stille Rume

Into the heart of quiet sacred rooms

Muss du fliehen aus des Leben Drang.

Must you flee from lifes urge.

Freiheit ist nur in der Reich der Trume,

Freedom is only in the realm of dreams,

Und das Schne blht nur in Gesang.

And the beauty of flowers only in song.

Der Antritt des neuen Jahrhunderts

The Start of the New Century

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 1

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 2

reference to any content. A propositions reference is determined by two types of factors:

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 3

Numbers and Their Categories

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 4

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 5

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 6

Propositions and Categories in Ethics

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 7

Finally, if we take a third type of ethics based on the notion of collectivity as a

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 8

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 9

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 10

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 11

Propositions and Categories of Expression

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 12

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 13

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 14

Propositions and Categories of Action

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 15

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 16

Propositions that Lack Reference

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 17

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera

The Limits of Language - 18

Jos Carlos Bermejo Barrera