For a Philosophy of Listening

Abstract

As an authoritative voice of classical philosophy, Plutarch of Chaeronea still offers a deep meditation on language, showing the correct way to listen, and assigning primacy to the word. By listening to the word of the other we practice the art of the word, which means educating ourselves in a truthful dialogue in which profound intention is solely the truth, which presupposes knowing how to welcome the words of the other into one’s own interiority, respecting the Socratic imperative taken from the oracle of Delphi: “know thyself”. Franz Rosenzweig, Ferdinand Ebner and Emmanuel Levinas can be considered the today's exponents of the “philosophy of dialogue”, who, even without mutual influences, found in different ways and in a passionate and very personal meditations on meaning and value of language, the oldest and deepest root of Western philosophy: listening to the “word”, and philosophy as dialogue in truth.