Language and Magic: Studies in the Magical Function of Speech
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The power of language has come to hold the central position in our conception of human mentality. Today, the man in the street has realised with astonishment how easy it is to be deceived and misled by words. The 'magical' power of the word has caught the attention of those who explore the nature of the human mind and the structure of human knowledge. This work by the late Japanese scholar, first published in 1956, tackles this complex and difficult subject. He studies the worldwide belief in the magical power of language, and examines its influence on man's thought and action. The purpose of the author in this book is to study the world-wide and world-old belief in the magical power of language, to examine its influence on the ways of thinking and acting of man, and finally to carry out an inquiry, as systematically as may be, into the nature and origin of the intimate connection between magic and speech. About The Author Toshihiko Izutsu was Professor Emeritus at Keio University in Japan and an outstanding authority in the metaphysical and philosophical wisdom schools of Islamic Sufism, Hindu Advaita Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism (particularly Zen), and Philosophical Taoism. Fluent in over 30 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Greek, his peripatetic research in such places as the Middle East (especially Iran), India, Europe, North America, and Asia were undertaken with a view to developing a meta-philosophical approach to comparative religion based upon a rigorous linguistic study of traditional metaphysical texts. Izutsu often stated his belief that harmony could be fostered between peoples by demonstrating that many beliefs with which a community identified itself could be found, though perhaps masked in a different form, in the metaphysics of another, very different community. (less)
Paperback, 199 pages
Published 2012 by Islamic Book Trust (first published 1956)
| Review of | ISBN 9789839541762 | |
| Rating | ||
| Shelves | to-read ( 1404th ) | |
| Format | Paperback edit | |
| Status | April 19, 2022 – Shelved as: to-read April 19, 2022 – Shelved | |
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This complex book sets out to delineate the magical nature of language.
Magical thinking, as often found in primitive societies, the peripheries of modern religions, or even in daily superstition thinking of the modern people could be loosely defined into the direct manifestation of effect via an indirect medium that is directly associated with the effect. An example would be the concept of "jinxing", where something actually happened when one actually speaks about it.
Izutsu strived to demonstrate that the magical nature of language is not based from fallacious thinking of men, but rise from the very nature of language itself.
Language as understood by the modern positivists as an activity embedded in logic. Monstrosities rose from their hapless quest for a logical structure of language, until Wittgenstein called it a day by deciding that language is an active activity, where no set-to-stone carved in it. We created rules for almost everything, but not everything. We set the ground rules in football in order for it to be playable, but not to an extent to exactly define how high the ball should go etc., as long as these peripheries questions do not interrupt with the game itself.
Language thus, is not a one-to-one function with rigid logical framework behind it. It is half-referential (as in denotative function, to directly refers to things concrete and experiential without), and also half-emotive (as in connotative function, to indirectly refers things without i.e. feelings, emotions, memories, poetic usage of language). When we speak of a thing, we not only isolate the thing and to highlight upon it its existence, but also to imbued it with webs of evocative information.
This active and fluid nature of language is what makes language magical in the sense of creating awe behind lines of poetry of ejaculations of emotion. Those are the magical properties of language in our daily lives.
Isutzu also offers a theory of origin of language, not from communicative purposes, but rather that language originated from a festal origin. The primitive people would gather together in rituals, ceremonies that would facilitate the heightening of emotion. These rituals then acts as a medium where heightening of emotions could be then released with vocal raptures, allowing first associations between meaning and vocal ejaculations. It is the symbolic nature of men's mind that allows them to, in a way, pregnant the early gesticulations with meaning. (less)
Magical thinking, as often found in primitive societies, the peripheries of modern religions, or even in daily superstition thinking of the modern people could be loosely defined into the direct manifestation of effect via an indirect medium that is directly associated with the effect. An example would be the concept of "jinxing", where something actually happened when one actually speaks about it.
Izutsu strived to demonstrate that the magical nature of language is not based from fallacious thinking of men, but rise from the very nature of language itself.
Language as understood by the modern positivists as an activity embedded in logic. Monstrosities rose from their hapless quest for a logical structure of language, until Wittgenstein called it a day by deciding that language is an active activity, where no set-to-stone carved in it. We created rules for almost everything, but not everything. We set the ground rules in football in order for it to be playable, but not to an extent to exactly define how high the ball should go etc., as long as these peripheries questions do not interrupt with the game itself.
Language thus, is not a one-to-one function with rigid logical framework behind it. It is half-referential (as in denotative function, to directly refers to things concrete and experiential without), and also half-emotive (as in connotative function, to indirectly refers things without i.e. feelings, emotions, memories, poetic usage of language). When we speak of a thing, we not only isolate the thing and to highlight upon it its existence, but also to imbued it with webs of evocative information.
This active and fluid nature of language is what makes language magical in the sense of creating awe behind lines of poetry of ejaculations of emotion. Those are the magical properties of language in our daily lives.
Isutzu also offers a theory of origin of language, not from communicative purposes, but rather that language originated from a festal origin. The primitive people would gather together in rituals, ceremonies that would facilitate the heightening of emotion. These rituals then acts as a medium where heightening of emotions could be then released with vocal raptures, allowing first associations between meaning and vocal ejaculations. It is the symbolic nature of men's mind that allows them to, in a way, pregnant the early gesticulations with meaning. (less)
Feb 06, 2020Istvan Zoltan rated it liked it
Shelves: 20th-century, big-picture-philosophy, history, non-fiction, philosophy, poetry, language
A very insightful book combining ideas from linguistics, anthropology and sociology. With great sensitivity Izutsu identifies several social practices and institutions in which our traditional ways of thinking, our inherited appreciation for rituals, form the basis of what and how we do.
