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WALKER PERCY, LANGUAGE, AND HOMO SINGULARIS
Author(s) -
Sykes John D.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/zygo.12302
Subject(s) - materialism , the symbolic , human language , epistemology , on language , language and thought , sociology , cognitive science , point (geometry) , linguistics , philosophy , psychology , psychoanalysis , cognition , mathematics , geometry , neuroscience
The novelist Walker Percy argued that modern science has a tremendous blind spot in its view of human nature. Unlike purely physical phenomena, which can be explained by the interaction of dyadic relationships, human beings must also be understood in terms of triadic relationships brought into being by symbolic language. The self brought into being by symbolic language is nonmaterial but real, and operates by different “laws” than those that govern dyadic relations. In making this case, Percy drew a sharp line between human and nonhuman language, a line that more recent developments in science has challenged. However, Percy's central point, that the agent of symbolic language cannot be understood within a materialist framework, remains valid.