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Philosophy and Language

To Express It Is To Explain It

Akilesh Ayyar explains Proust’s and Deleuze’s takes on enigmatic messages.

When we ask ourselves why we have a particular feeling or thought, engage in a particular behavior, experience awe or wonder or love, or, perhaps most importantly, suffer emotional pain or pursue self-destructive paths, what kind of answer do we expect? What would it mean to make sense of our inner lives?

There are two main types of answers that might be given: the mechanistic (or naturalistic) and the expressive. Modern science, including psychology and neurobiology, and even psychoanalysis, views the human being as a machine. To explain an emotion, a thought, or a behavior, is to trace the inputs into that machine and the processes that modify those inputs into the mental event, the output. Different scientific schools might focus on different inputs and processes – might conceive the gears of the machine differently. Some might focus on genetics, others on early childhood relationships, still others on cultural norms.

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