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Silence, Metaphor and the Communication of Religious Meaning Part II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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It would be fascinating to trace out in more detail the role of silence in modern thought. However, my aim here is necessarily limited to a selection of comments on silence rather than a comprehensive analysis of how this far from straightforward topic has been tackled.
There are, of course, varieties of silence. In an interesting paper in which he looks at silence in the work of Rudolf Otto and Harold Pinter, Bernard Dauenhauer notes that silence “does not always manifest itself as ‘safe’ and ‘benign’. It can, for example, be terrifying, menacing or awesome. Silence can express many states of mind, both trivial and profound and in spiritual training a distinction is often made between the silence of mouth, mind and will. And Arthur Danto, in an essay on “Silence and the Tao” makes a distinction between reaching and being reduced to silence.” One way of looking at silence, though naturally it is not applicable to every manifestation of this phenomenon, is to view it as what happens when metaphor fails.
If the methodology of Religious Studies is empathetic, is such empathy not likely to lead towards a situation where silence rather than words is what is encountered? And if this is indeed the case, how, if at all, can the discipline function in a situation where, apparently, metaphor cannot operate? Before attempting an answer, I think we need briefly to review something of the conceptual centrality which metaphor has claim to.
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- Copyright © 1993 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
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