On the nature and origin of music and language

Debates about language's capacity and aptitude to name objects and existing things by their proper names become, beyond a certain point, the subject of a certain nationalism on behalf of that language. Although the Germans claim that their own language possesses this quality more, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, as a very good German, says that the language that possesses this feature most is ancient Greek. Greek, as language as Logos, as the language in which human existence finds itself in its most authentic state without distancing itself from its origin, becomes the object of intense praise in Heidegger.

In fact, perhaps all languages possess this logos quality in one way or another. For Hebrew, for instance, it is frequently claimed with strong emphasis and illustration. There is a very extensive literature holding that the correspondence between the phonetics of Arabic and reality is almost one-to-one and never accidental. Proceeding from this, we can say with certainty that had Heidegger known Arabic, he would not have lingered so long on Greek as the best language in which to see this quality. Perhaps this too is a matter of destiny. Arabic is a language in which even the word "Arabic" itself comes from expressing reality best, and which signifies reality letter by letter, word by word, beginning from the phonetic level.

Yet Heidegger will say that among all languages only ancient Greek is logos, because, in his words, it is the language closest to the naming of the gods. The power of agreement between the structure of language and reality is what makes a language logos. This language was formed from the names that God, who possesses the true knowledge of everything, taught to Adam. That is why the language of paradise is itself truth, the language in which meaning is realized. In that language meaning is not deferred or postponed; it is in a state of "presence" in conversation.

In his article on the "Name of God" in Jewish theology, which is discussed in connection with T. Adorno, David Kaufmann says precisely that at the level of the language valid in Paradise, truth is the essential representation of the object, its self-disclosure. According to this, truth, as the simple being of things, is peculiar to Adam and is bound up with Adam's practice of naming. Likewise for Walter Benjamin, "... paradise is a condition in which words have not yet had to struggle with their communicative meaning. In the act of naming, ideas are displayed without intentionality... all essences exist in complete and perfect independence, not only from phenomena but especially from one another."

In the mortal world we live in, language by its nature comes to be directed toward things that are not here. That is, in the words or sentences we use when we speak, we describe things happening in other places and times that are not at hand with us at that moment. Thus the bond between name and named is severed and grows distant in proportion to the distance from paradise.

Kaufmann treats Adorno's stance on this theme as one of the most striking examples of his carrying his own Jewish theology into philosophy. There is a restriction in Jewish theology on pronouncing the Name of God. Is this restriction because this name was never given to them in the first place, or is it in the name of a respect that must be shown to God by not uttering His name carelessly? This question has of course been much debated in the Jewish theological tradition. But Kaufmann says there is a serious link between the restriction on pronouncing the Name and the philosophy conducted on the relationship between language and reality. This can in fact be taken as the direct influence of Jewish theology on the philosophy of language. Indeed, Adorno's famous comparisons between music and language are also taken as an expression of an effort to approach the Name of God indirectly. Language, as a sound, is directed toward something other than itself. It expresses, summons, refers to something other than itself; to something that is not here, not present now. Music, however, as a sound, as a sequence of notes, possesses its own meaning in itself and directs nowhere; it represents itself here and now.

"The language of music is quite different from the language of intention. It has a theological dimension. It simultaneously reveals and conceals what it has to say. Its idea is the divine Name given shape. It is prayer purified of myth, freed from effective magic. It is the human effort, doomed to failure as always, aimed not at conveying meanings but at bringing the Name to life."

"Intentional language wants to mediate the absolute; yet the absolute escapes language in every specific intention, leaving each of the specific intentions behind, because each one is limited. Music finds the absolute immediately, but darkens at the moment of discovery, just as a very strong light dazzles a person's eyes and prevents seeing things that could be seen very well... With music, intentions are broken and shattered, scattered in all directions by the effect of their own forces, and they come together again in the ordering of the Name" (Adorno, Music and Language, Cogito no. 36, 2003).

After these assessments of Adorno, Kaufmann will say that in all the debates in philosophy, from hermeneutics to poststructuralism, to anti-metaphysics, what is rejected is in fact the Name (the Name of God). He will add that this sensitivity against pronouncing the Name is directly related to Jewish theological sensibility. And he will add that the rejection of metaphysics, objectivism and logocentrism in philosophical language and discourse and the restriction on the Name of God in Judaism run parallel to each other.

"Philosophy approaches the Name, toward that future reconciliation between the universal and the particular, by denying that the reconciliation has yet been achieved, by refuting the ideological claim that word and thing, universal and particular, coincide. Thus philosophy is in parallel with Judaism in refusing to utter the Name. If we see the prohibition merely as a matter of refusal, we can argue that the analogy between philosophy and Judaism is false. Jews do not speak of the Name because they do not want to violate its sanctity; philosophy does not speak of the name because it is not yet adequate, because it is not yet the Name" (Kaufmann, 2003: Adorno and the Name of God, Cogito Adorno: Mass, Melancholy, Philosophy special issue 36, pp. 170-183).

So what does it turn out to be? The way to better understand some philosophical debates passes through theology. Of course, it is unnecessary for us to say that there is no path that rewards the zeal, which flares up from time to time among us, to purge theology of philosophy.