Lesson 8: Nothingness

Context
One of the central functions of language is to express thought. However, identifying other
functions of language is important so that the power of language can be assessed. If language is
only a tool by which we express our thoughts, then we may command it and use it for our own
ends. If, however, language is not only a tool but is also a shaper, forming thought, identity and
memory, then we may be commanded by it. Among other things, then, the knowledge we have is
dependent to some extent upon it and we may not be as free as we assume we are.
This lesson belongs to a consideration of language, after the introductory material has been
presented. It is fairly sophisticated, but beginning students have responded well to its inherent
drama.

Aims
y To discuss the fundamental nature of language and its role in all knowledge systems.
y To consider linguistic determinism in human life and to question, therefore, claims of free
will.
y To consider whether or not language creates, clarifies, or obscures what is true.

Class Management
This lesson is based on the reading of a single poem. It is divided into two different group
sessions with reports back to a full class and a discussion as a result of those reports. The lesson
usually requires 100 minutes to complete and can easily be done over two consecutive class
sessions.

Group Session I
Divide the class into groups of three and ask each group to complete the following tasks (allow
20 minutes).
y One student should read the poem out loud to the other two. The repetition of the
poem may serve to dramatize the fear in the poem.
y Choose a recorder or spokesperson.
y Write down in one sentence the central knowledge claim of the poem.
y Cite as much evidence as possible for that claim from the poem itself.
y Summarize what life seems to be with language and what it seems to be without it.
y Write down any experiences, anecdotes or memories students have, that are similar to
the contents of the poem or support the central claim of the poem.
Ask students to rejoin the whole class and give each group a chance to present its insights and
examples (allow 30 minutes).

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Group Session II
As the general discussion wanes, have students count off in numbers, 1–5. Assign knowledge
systems to each number:
1 The arts
2 History
3 Human sciences
4 Natural sciences
5 Mathematics
Have each group prepare a brief report for the whole class on the particular way(s) this poem
would be true or not true for the discipline the group represents (allow 20 minutes).
Ask students to balance theoretical, abstract conclusions with specific cases drawn particularly
from their Diploma Programme subjects.
Once again, ask students to rejoin the whole class and compare their central findings (allow 30
minutes).

Focus Activity

Nothingness
I woke up at night and my language was gone
No sign of language no writing no alphabet
nor symbol nor word in any tongue
and raw was my fear—like the terror perhaps
of a man flung from a treetop far above the ground
a shipwrecked person on a tide-engulfed sandbank
a pilot whose parachute would not open
or the fear of a stone in a bottomless pit
and the fright was unvoiced unlettered unuttered
and inarticulate O how inarticulate
and I was alone in the dark
a non-I in the all-pervading gloom
with no grasp no leaning point
everything stripped of everything
and the sound was speechless and voiceless
and I was naught and nothing
without even a gibbet to hang onto
without a single peg to hang onto
and I no longer knew who or what I was
and I was no more

Aharon Amir, translated from the Hebrew by Abraham Birman

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Discussion Questions
y What are some feasible working definitions of language?
y Why does the poem take place at night in close proximity to sleep and dreams?
y How might it be among our worst nightmares to wake up and find language gone? Or how,
on the other hand, might it turn out to be heaven on earth, or a dream come true, to wake up
and be forever unencumbered by language?
y How accurate is the contention at the close of the poem that the absence of language
amounts to annihilation?
y If languages are systems of symbols, how can we be sure that the symbol represents the thing
for which it stands?
y If language rests on symbols, how can it be the thing itself, that is our identity, our
consciousness, our life?
y If one takes the symbol away, does not the thing itself remain?
y If we lose the symbol, what is it that we have lost if not the thing for which the symbol
stands?
y What is it in human life that having the symbol seems to supply us with?
y To what extent is every kind of human knowledge dependent upon having a symbol system
through and within which it can be formulated?
y How does language resemble other things or people to whom we grant power?
y Can it be said that language is one of the several instances in human life in which we create
something, forget we have made it, and yield to it maximum authority? What other instances,
if any, are there in which we do this?
y Identify several different kinds of language. Are any more effective than others in changing
nothing to something?
y One definition of a miracle is the bringing of something out of nothing. Considering the title
of the poem, can language be considered a miracle? Are there any instances or stories that
depict language not as a miracle but as a curse? Which position seems to be the stronger?
y How can we be sure that something we coax out of nothing through language is anything at
all?
y Are there any advantages to entering the nothingness and forfeiting the language that seems
to anchor us in something?
y Having once acquired a language, is it ever possible for us really to stop talking? Once we
take on a language, can we ever really lose it?
y Rather than language, what would you prefer as the basis for knowledge, reality, personal
identity?
y If you were to write a poem about the absence of language, would fear be the dominant
emotion you would emphasize or would you stress some other emotion?
y The poem implies that we are dead the minute we lose language. In what way(s) is this claim
true? How could it be justified? How valid would it be to claim that we are dead the minute
we begin to speak?
y How might nothingness, especially linguistic nothingness, be among the most substantial
states on earth?

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Links to Other Areas of TOK

The lesson centres on language, with links to perception and emotion in the TOK guide and, in
group session II, to areas of knowledge. It is also relevant to the linking questions about
interpretation and truth.

From Other Times and Places

y Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity each have traditions which encourage the loss of
speech. Studying these pursuits of silence and the practitioners of such pursuits offers
counter-arguments to the ideas of this poem.
y Biblical and mythological stories also both affirm and deny the central importance of
language in human life.
y The life of Helen Keller provides a wonderful, specific case of language as miracle.
y The account of Samuel Johnson as he describes waking in the night unable to speak because
of a stroke is a wonderful case of facing linguistic impairment without fear.

Quotations

We live not on things, but on the meaning of things. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Words form the thread on which we string our experiences. Aldous Huxley

All human thought comes into existence by grasping the meaning and mastering the use of
language.
Polanyi

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