Abstract:
Both animals and humans make sounds. And yet, could there be
something that is no more than the sound of an animal? This question opens
up two domains of inquiry: the first concerns the relationship between sound
and speech and the second between sound and sense, where sense designates
the realm of meaning. The interesting problem posed by noise does not
concern the obvious difference between noise and words but the possible one
between noise and sense. While a distinction may need to be drawn between
that which has meaning, even if it is a meaning to be discovered, and that
which can be attributed meaning, the liminal can have a decisive quality. A
snarl be it animal or human is neither fully meaningful nor mere noise. The
snarl hovers at the edge. The edge is the limit condition at which claims of
sense are negotiated. The comprehension of both noise and speech involves
this limit. What this entails is that noise and speech are not to be understood
in terms of an opposition. Identity emerges through what can be described as
an operational liminality. The task therefore is to understand noise in terms
of this operation. Moreover, it will be an operative quality marked by continuity
and as such cannot be understood as though it were only a singular
occurrence. Rather than treat this as an abstract problem, its presence in the
writings of Heraclitus will be the point of focus of this paper.
