From Homer's Outis-"No One," or "Non-One," "No Man," or
"Non-Man"-to "soul," "spirit," and the unnamable. Homer recounts
how, trapped inside a monster's cave, with nothing but his wits to
call upon, Ulysses once saved himself by twisting his name. He
called himself Outis: "No One," or "Non-One," "No Man," or
"Non-Man." The ploy was a success. He blinded his barbaric host and
eluded him, becoming anonymous, for a while, even as he bore a
name. Philosophers never forgot the lesson that the ancient hero
taught. From Aristotle and his commentators in Greek, Arabic,
Latin, and more modern languages, from the masters of the medieval
schools to Kant and his many successors, thinkers have exploited
the possibilities of adding "non-" to the names of man. Aristotle
is the first to write of "indefinite" or "infinite" names, his
example being "non-man." Kant turns to such terms in his theory of
the infinite judgment, illustrated by the sentence, "The soul is
non-mortal." Such statements play major roles in the philosophies
of Maimon, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Hermann Cohen. They are
profoundly reinterpreted in the twentieth century by thinkers as
diverse as Carnap and Heidegger. Reconstructing the adventures of a
particle in philosophy, Daniel Heller-Roazen seeks to show how a
grammatical possibility can be an incitement for thought. Yet he
also draws a lesson from persistent examples. The philosophers'
infinite names all point to one subject: us. "Non-man" or "soul,"
"Spirit" or "the unconditioned," we are beings who name and name
ourselves, bearing witness to the fact that we are, in every sense,
unnamable.
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