Although listening is central to human interaction, its importance is often ignored. In the rush to speak and be heard, it is easy to neglect listening and disregard its significance as a way of being with others and the world. Drawing upon insights from phenomenology, linguistics, philosophy of communication, and ethics, Listening, Thinking, Being is both an invitation and an intervention meant to turn much of what readers know, or think they know, about language, communication, and listening inside out. It is not about how to be a good listener or the numerous pitfalls that stem from the failure to listen. Rather, the purpose of the book is, first, to make readers aware of the value and importance of listening as a fundamental human ability inextricably connected with language and thought; second, to alert readers to the complexity of listening from personal, cultural, and philosophical perspectives; and third, to offer readers a way to think of listening as a mode of communicative action by which humans create and abide in the world. Lisbeth Lipari brings together historical, literary, intercultural, scientific, musical, and philosophical perspectives, as well as a range of her own personal experiences, to produce this highly readable analysis of how the human experience of being as an ethical relation with others . . . is enacted by means of listening.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Akroatic Thinking
Vibrating Worlds and Listening Bodies
Premodern Perspectives on Language and Thought
Contemporary Perspectives on Language and Thought
Communication and a Nice Knock-Down Argument
Interlistening and the Tout Ensemble
Listening Others to Speech
Toward an Ethics of Attunement
Notes
Bibliography
Index
“In this well-written book, Lipari provides an analysis of how humans build ethical relationships with others through listening. In eight chapters, the author makes clear the value and importance of listening as a fundamental human ability inextricably connected with language and thought. Through a variety of philosophical, personal, and cultural perspectives, Lipari frames listening in new ways. In a particularly interesting chapter, “Communication and a Nice Knock-Down Argument,” Lipari argues that even communication in isolation is dialogic because of the ways in which words from the past reverberate with the rhetor. In a concluding chapter, Lipari argues for “attunement,” the inseparable connection between speaking and logos. Many other texts engage the importance of listening in human communication . . . but Lipari is one of few scholars to take on the daunting task of developing new philosophical approaches to this subject.”
