Saying the World Anew: A Philosophical Understanding of Communication as Testimony

This study develops a philosophy of communication by investigating the crisis of directionality that follows from the dissolution of foundationalist metaphysics. Drawing from fundamental ontology and philosophical hermeneutics, this project suggests we shift our understanding of communication as a process of information exchange toward communication as an enactment of testimony. This leads to an examination of the rhetorical figure of hyperbole. It is argued that hyperbole offers unique insight into the ground of communication as all communicative acts are, in their ontological structure, hyperbolic. Moreover, this hyperbolic characterization of communication highlights the role of excess, inexpressibility, risk, and extravagance central to communicative praxis. To illustrate this, a reading of three figures in American Transcendentalism—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman—is offered. By thinking communication as testimony, as a making sense in common, the relationship between communication and a radical democracy to come is brought into relief.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication

Year

2016

Author dc:creator

• Sturgess, Jessica Nicole

Contributors dc:contributor

• Patrice Buzzanell
• Daniel W Smith
• Calvin O Schrag
• Stacey Connaughton
• Ramsey Eric Ramsey

• ethics
• hermeneutics
• hyperbole
• ontology
• philosophy of communication
• testimony

Repository record dc:identifier

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1276

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:docs.lib.purdue.edu:open_access_dissertations-2492