On the impossibility of saying oneself

Abstract

The “impossibility” in our title is similar to what Emmanuel Falque designates by the notion of “outside phenomenon”, namely a region as excepting itself from the dialectic of logos and chaos. “Out of phenomenon” in the sense here of a principial impossibility of “saying oneself”, affecting in turn the “self” (saying oneself) and its expression (saying oneself). Phenomenology has taught us that there is no ego as below the cogito. No self‑foundation guarantees the reference that is marked in the (lexical) expression: “self”. From this correlation between egoism and narrativity, we will retain in this article only the essential affirmation, namely that the self is above all a saying: an act of speech, not about itself, nor from itself, but as adhering to itself in such a way that no gap remains between the word (self) and the referent (self). The self becomes from then on like a performance (of language). Almost a reduction. But what happens when the self is affected by a radical aphasia?