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The Role of Language in the Theory of Communication of Nicolas Malebranche Thomas M

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The Role of Language in the Theory of Communication of Nicolas Malebranche Thomas M University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln French Language and Literature Papers Modern Languages and Literatures, Department of 1981 The Role of Language in the Theory of Communication of Nicolas Malebranche Thomas M. Carr Jr. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangfrench Part of the Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, and the Philosophy of Language Commons Carr, Thomas M. Jr., "The Role of Language in the Theory of Communication of Nicolas Malebranche" (1981). French Language and Literature Papers. 63. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangfrench/63 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Modern Languages and Literatures, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in French Language and Literature Papers by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in the 1980 Mid-America Linguistics Conference papers, edited by Michael M. T. Henderson, University of Kansas, Department of Linguistics, Lawrence, Kansas (1981), pp. 58–67. Copyright © 1981 University of Kansas Linguistics Department. The Role of Language in the Theory of Communication of Nicolas Malebranche Thomas M. Carr, Jr. University of Nebraska–Lincoln Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) is perhaps the most important French philosopher be- tween Descartes and the Revolution of 1789. His synthesis of Cartesian elements and Au- gustinianism in the last quarter of the seventeenth century had great influence on several generations of thinkers before the rationalism he represented was replaced by the new Lockian sensualism. There has been a European revival of interest in Malebranche in the last twenty years, centering around the first critical edition of his complete works, a task headed by the Belgian historian of philosophy André Robinet, and there are signs that American interest is growing as well with the recent publication of translations of two of his works (Malebranche 1980a, 1980b), and another monograph on his philosophy (Radner 1978). Malebranche has not received much attention from historians of linguistics, although his only extended comments on language, dealing with how meaning is attached to words, have been treated in some detail in Robinet’s 1978 excellent survey of language theory in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Literary critics, on the other hand, often refer to his attack against rhetoric but seldom analyze it at length (France 1972, Tocanne 1978). My own interest in Malebranche began from just such references to his ideas on communica- tion. As I looked into them further I realized that the literary historians had emphasized such psychological elements as the imagination and emotions in his theory of rhetoric at the expense of language as language; conversely, his ideas on language took on broader interest when situated in the larger perspective of his views on various forms of commu- nication. Still, it must be admitted that language was not one of his central preoccupations, but then, as a reviewer of Robinet’s book remarks, philosophers in the seventeenth century did C ARR, 1980 M ID-A MERICA L INGUISTICS C ONFERENCE PAPERS not share the obsession with language of their twentieth-century successors (Hottois 1979: 586). Rather Malebranche is best known today for two doctrines, occasionalism and vision in God. Occasionalism holds that the interactions in the world around us which we take to be examples of one thing causing another to happen are in fact deceiving. The causality that we observe is only apparent, for God reserves to himself all true power and efficacy. We have only observed an occasional cause. Vision in God applies this theory to human knowledge, and at the same time solves the problem in Cartesian philosophy of the mind’s interaction with the body. Descartes had posited that the mind and body are two radically different substances. His explanation of how these two distinct substances are joined in humans, and of how the mind and body interact did not satisfy even his disciples. Malebranche’s solution was to maintain that the mind is united, not only to the body but also to God. Since his doctrine of occasionalism makes God the only true cause, it became all the easier for him to locate the ultimate source of all essential knowledge in God himself rather than in the body or the mind. He will see that Malebranche’s ideas on communication depend greatly on this scheme. It becomes clear why language is not at the heart of his concerns if we examine his phil- osophic project, reflected best in the title of his first and most famous book, La recherche de la vérité. This quest for truth is only satisfied in pure thought, in a realm where the thinker leaves behind all traces of the material world. In the Augustinian tradition, thought is in- dependent of language: “La substance purement spirituelle de 1’âme humain participe au Verbe sans intermédiaire, dans une immédiation de pure lumière . La pensée donne la réplique exacte et muette de la vision du savoir dans la participation sans écart au Verbe” (Robinet 1978: 18–19). If Malebranche’s only concern had been to discover truth for himself, language would have been of little importance. Yet he was equally dedicated to communicating his method and findings to others, and in the tradition of Saint Augustine, it is precisely here that lan- guage intervenes (Hottois 1979: 575). Remarks on language are, in fact, found scattered all through his works, especially where ever he reflects on communication. Thus, language, which at first seemed somewhat incidental to his central pursuit, becomes in the end rather significant. This paper examines the role of language in two opposing paradigms of communica- tion. The first is found in his famous indictment of “la communication contagieuse des imaginations fortes” in La Recherche (I: 320). It is exemplified by the appeals to the imagi- nation and emotions of the eloquence of Seneca, Tertullian, and Montaigne. The second form is best illustrated by his own dialogues; it is patterned on his recommendations for the discovery of truth which give priority to the mind’s ability to focus its attention on the Divine Reason. Examining one example of his strictures against what he considers false eloquence will give us a fair idea of the rationale behind his condemnation: “Il faut bien distinguer la force et la beauté des paroles, de la force et l’evidence des raisons. Il y a sans doute beaucoup de force, et quelque beauté dans les paroles de Seneque, mais il y a très peu de force et d’évi- dence dans ces raisons. Il donne par la force de son imagination un certain tour à ses pa- roles, qui touche, qui agite, et qui persuade par impression; mais il ne leur donne pas cette 2 C ARR, 1980 M ID-A MERICA L INGUISTICS C ONFERENCE PAPERS netteté, et cette lumiére pure, qui éclaire et qui persuade par évidence” (I: 345). Male- branche’s complaint is that such discourse is addressed to the imagination and emotions rather than the head. Reason is sidestepped by a variety of strategies. In some passages he mentions verbal devices like the cadence of prose, figures of speech, or literary ornaments. Other times, when stressing oral delivery, he adds tone of voice, gestures, and the general air and manner of the speaker. Any and all of these tricks of style or delivery are capable of distracting the listener from reasoned argument. Implicit behind this view is Malebranche’s adaptation of a good deal of Cartesian psycho- physiology and epistemology. Indeed, it was upon reading Descartes’ treatise on the sub- ject, De l’homme, that Malebranche was converted to the new philosophy. Descartes main- tained that there is a radical separation between the extended world of matter and the spiritual world of thought. Humans are particularly susceptible to error because of their make-up as a union of these two dissimilar substances. All important truth—God’s exist- ence, moral laws, and the essence of things—are known by the mind as clear and distinct ideas. However, the body is constantly feeding the mind information which lacks these two qualities. This information, which comes from the senses, must be distrusted because of its incomplete and hazy nature; it lacks the clarity and distinction which is the criterion of truth. But this is not to say that sense information is worthless; rather it is true only in regard to the relation of the objects of the senses to our bodies. Sense data tell us nothing about the essence of things in themselves because the senses have been given us by God chiefly for self-preservation, to warn us about impending dangers to the body. The discov- ery of any ultimate truth is the task of the mental faculty called the “pure” understanding. The misfortune is that sense impressions have a stronger appeal for us than the more ab- stract, clear, and distinct ideas of the understanding. These “pure” ideas remain on the surface of the mind, while sense data penetrate it deeply. The result is that those who would dedicate themselves to the pursuit of truth must be on guard not to be waylaid by sense knowledge. The mind’s weapon in this rear guard skirmish is its other chief faculty, the will. This faculty must maintain the judgment in a constant state of suspension until the understand- ing is satisfied that clear and distinct ideas have been attained. At the same time, the will should focus the attention on the problem at hand, examining it from every side, as it searches out truth.
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