Friday 7 December 2012

Pinning things down in words

An amazing and not very well known sentence from Lonergan:

"It would seem that the human psyche floats with the weightlessness of images on the caprices of affectivity and aggressivity until it can pin things down in words." [Lonergan 1964 Georgetown PB 355 5.]

The significance then of language: from elemental meaning which is diffuse and vague, to clarity ... But also to loss of power compensated by gain in a certain control ...

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