Rolf Kühn

Selbsterprobung des Lebens und Schweigen

Zum Verhältnis von Leiblichkeit, Sprache und Stimme
Section: Aufsätze
Volume 123 (2026) / Issue 1, pp. 80-106 (27)
Published 05.03.2026
DOI 10.1628/zthk-2026-0005
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Summary

Based on the difference between sensory experience and self-testing as the immediacy
of life before any language, an a priori of silence arises within the originality of our own
lives. According to the phenomenological and linguistic-pragmatic analyses of Heidegger,
Henry and Wittgenstein, this 'sigetics' is taken to the point where silence touches the 'loud
voice' of Jesus on the cross according to Mark 15:34 - 37. The latter appears as a phenomenon
before all cultural discursivity in order to be given as the 'word of life' in all saying.
As immanent self-testing, voice/silence are then identical with the momentary truth of
our corporeality as incarnational verbum carnis above all world appearance. Hermeneutic
approaches to traditions and texts are not thereby eliminated, but only recognised in their
subsequent mediating function, should the immediately original life momentarily reveal
itself as forgotten, or its silence not be perceived as presence.