even if she knows what the words mean to her in the literal or metaphorical sense.
In fact, Cavell brings up the point that there are some modes offigurative language
in which what the expression means cannot be stated at all, at least not in any
conventional way. According to Cavell, one example in such a use of language is
the style of poetry known as“Symbolist”, “Surrealist,”or “Imagist.”^8 Cavell
describes the kind of dumbness that strikes us in such a case when wefind ourselves
lacking the language to express what we mean by the words we use:
I know what it means but I cannot say what it means. And this would no longer suggest, as
it would if said about a metaphor, that you really do not know what it means—or; it might
suggest it, but you couldn’t be sure...
Paraphrasing the lines, or explaining their meaning, or telling it or putting the thought
another way—all these are out of the question. One may be able to say nothing except that a
feeling has been voiced by a kindred spirit and that if someone does not get it he is not in
one’s world, or not of one’sflesh. The lines may, that is, be left as touchstones of intimacy.
Or one might try describing more or less elaborately a particular day or evening, a certain
place and mood and gesture, in whose presence the line in question comes to seem a natural
expression, the only expression. (Cavell 1976 , p. 81)The moment of dumbness Cavell describes in the earlier citation seems to refer here
to the moment when we feel something deep, rich or powerful inside us, which
cannot be put into words. For Cavell, this is not afailingof language but a feature
of a specific approach of language. As Cavell suggests above, in poetry of certain
kinds the words are usednot to meansomething, butto showsomething, as if they
weregesturesof pointing to something happening deep inside us.
But what exactly is Cavell trying to say when he talks about the nature of“this
dumbness”that ordinary language philosophers tend to evoke in us? What does he
imply about the connection between using words and meaning what they say?
Normally what is said is what is meant; when being forced to explain the meaning
of what we say, we can explain what we mean by the words we use. But there are a
number of specific ways in which one’s words do not say what one means, as in the
more deliberate cases of lying, feigning, or misleading, and as also in those less
obvious cases of self-deceiving and“bad faith.”Thus, the connection between
using words and meaning what they say is not inevitable or automatic; it looks more
like a matter of convention or convenience. Yet, for Cavell, this is not the sort of
convention we would know how to get rid of. For“it is not a matter of convention
or ritual unless having language is convenience or unless thinking and speaking are
ritual”(Cavell 1976 , p. 271). This would mean that having language (i.e., thinking
and speaking) must be a very special kind of ritual (if it could be said to be a ritual
at all), outside which we could not imagine what human life would be like, or
without which there could be no human life at all. Likewise, if the connection
between using words and meaning what they say is a matter of convention at all,
this would be a very special kind of convention, in the absence of which we could
(^8) Cavell cites as examples of poetic expression of this kind“The mind is brushed by sparrow
wings,”and“as a calm darkens among water-light”(Cavell 1976 , p. 81).
76 D.-J. Kwak