Bruce B. Janz

The Status of Oral Traditions in the History of Philosophy: Methodological Considerations

7.-9. September 2023, Universität Hildesheim

Bruce B. Janz

Orality as Philosophical Performance

The question of orality in philosophy has tended to focus on the nature of texts, that is, the ways in which philosophical concepts, ideas, and arguments are communicated and handed down. Using this question, textuality has been regarded as superior to orality in every significant way, and because of this, cultures that have a strong tradition of writing have also been seen as having been on the forefront of philosophical production as well. What is overlooked in this picture is the cognition of philosophy, that is, that orality is about the production and imagination of philosophy rather than just the transmission of philosophy. We need to ask about more than whether there is as reliable transmission of concepts with orality as there is with textuality. The “more” is about the performance of orality as an aspect of philosophical activity itself, rather than as a preparatory stage to philosophical activity. Orality, I will argue, is a fundamentally social activity, something which is overlooked when we think of it as a lesser form of knowledge communication to textuality. It responds to its occasions – rarely does an oral performance look identical from one time to the next, but neither does it shift randomly. It is embodied – it is rarely just the recitation of words, but comes with affect, emphasis, and bodily semiotics that communicates both meaning and significance. And, as a performance, there exists the potentiality of this social and embodied experience to make new connections, to be more than just the presentation of thought, but to be thought itself. While we can see occasions for this within modern Western philosophy (e.g., the conference presentation), there exists the potential for a more engaged form of philosophy within groups that prioritize orality. We can also see elements of this in what Gregory Ulmer terms “electracy”, the form of experience we encounter in a digital age that in some ways recovers elements of orality. The question then is this: what would it look like for philosophical traditions steeped in textuality to rethink their assumed cognition of philosophical practice, to allow elements of orality to become part of that practice?

Bruce B. Janz Bruce Janz is Professor of Humanities in the Department of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research at the University of Central Florida. He has published and taught in contemporary European philosophy, African philosophy, phenomenological cognitive science, the history of mysticism, research on place and space, digital humanities, philosophies of the digital and of media. He also works on concepts of place and space across many disciplines, including Geography, Architecture, Sociology, and others. He has taught in Canada, the USA, Kenya, and South Africa. His publications include Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity (2022), "The universal and the individual, the global and the local: philosophys diverse debts and duties" (in Handbook of Culture and Glocalization, 2022), Derrida and Africa: Jacques Derrida as a Figure for African Thought (with J.E. Drabinski, N. Bragg, J. Steyn, K. Kavwahirehi, J.P. Martinon , 2019), Philosophy in an African Place (2009).