Sprache

This chapter gives an outline of Plotinus’ reflections on language. Though his philosophical work does not comprise a full-blown theory of language, it offers illuminating views about (i) the nature of linguistic utterances and their communicative function, (ii) the capacity of language to express thoughts and to describe reality accurately, and (iii) the limitations of language. Plotinus defines (spoken or written) language as an image of psychic thought, which is, in turn, an image of the thought of the intellect. As an image, language both represents its model and falls short of it. The more unified the reference of speech is, the less capable is language of expressing what it is. This is all the more true of the source of all unity and reality, the One: In whatever way we refer to it, we say something about us rather than about the One. This, however, does not undermine the distinction between more or less correct ways of pointing to it.