Silence, for Cioran, plays a very important role in his thought

Silence, for Cioran, plays a very important role in his thought, for it is by this that we can possibly get to the foundation of our being human within the universe. To quote: „A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.‟ Not only does this quote exemplify again the negativity about our being linguistically oriented, but it also shows how silence „brings us back to essentials‟, how it roots us in our original foundations as prelinguistic beings. By our rooting in silence we can gain a far greater knowledge of reality due to the fact that it will not become obscured or distorted by language. For Cioran places a great emphasis in a truth in wordlessness, in a proper connection with the world and the universe by solitude and silence. This is best exemplified in two illuminating quotes: „Is it not indecent to display one‟s secrets, to proffer one‟s very being, to tell and to tell oneself, whereas the fullest moments of one‟s life have been known in silence, in the perception of silence?‟ „True contact between beings is established only by mute presence, by apparent non-communication, by that mysterious and wordless exchange which resembles inward prayer.‟

In both of these quotes it is apparent that silence, as an inwardly directed solitude, brings a rich connectedness with the universe and the beings/objects which reside in it. In solitude we move retrograde back to a primordial innocence between ourselves and the universe, before any such dialogical shackling occurred; through silence we can regain that original prelinguism and, by this, attempt to ameliorate and mend the damage we have done to the ontology of reality and the universe by language.


Language and Silence: A Discussion Between Gadamer and Cioran on the Prerequisite of Language in Human Being

Brendan Dean