Phd in PHILOSOPHY

The research intends to delve into the existing relationship between subjectivity, language and power in the European context between the 19th and the 20th century, through the reference to Elias Canetti's reflection on language. For this purpose, first and foremost, the present research work intends to reconstruct the issue of the speaking mass emerging in linguistic thought between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, with particular attention to the ethnopsychology (Völkerpsychologie) developed by Heymann Steinthal as well as to psychological and sociological investigation. Both the former and the latter, simultaneously with the progressive protagonism of the masses on the political scene, recognize the dual nature of human existence —both individual and collective— and issue descriptions of the collective psyche as well as of the linguistic characteristics of the gregarious subject. This in-depth analysis will make it possible to recover the link between the question of language and the "enigma of the mass", taking into account the act of language in relation to its spatiotemporal and social collocation, based on a pragmatic prospective. Besides, the thematization of such elements will provide the theoretical context for the understanding of Canetti's reflection, which is inseparable from the author's biographical story. In particular, the two-fold reference, on the one hand, to language as a presence interwovenly connected to the masses and, on the other hand, to the linguistic faculty as the founder of relations of power makes it possible to weld the question of language and those of subjectivity and —individual, familial and collective— memory. Likewise, it allows us to recognize the specific difference between power and strength, as well as "the transformative potential" inherent in collective formations.

keywords
philosophy of language, speaking mass, power, langue, parole, discursive relationship, ethnopsychology, pragmatics