In-tensional In-dwelling, New Considerations in the Ontic Status of Silence in Human Semiosis

Abstract

Abstract
Silence as a phenomenon plays a fundamental role in human existence. The scientific approaches reveal three shared notions whereby the phenomenon acquires its distinctiveness, i.e., sound, speech, and noise. However, these dyadic considerations follow the principle of the excluded middle, making the different semiotic relations as logical ones between discrete entities. Within this framework, silence is fixed in a stable sign relationship, losing its dynamics, its capacity to be distinct and interconnected simultaneously. Moreover, when they are transferred to a more ontological scale, the subject/object distinction is not overcome. Therefore, two important studies applying the semiotic square had to become more flexible to address the dynamics of the phenomenon when approaching its ontic status. Having said this, the problem remains unsolved. This paper aims to point out this problem and propose another theoretical framework through contributions from existential semiotics, biosemiotics, and Heideggerian phenomenology. The intended feature of the phenomenon will be revisited to sow a seed for new methodological and ontological considerations, leading to a neologism “in-tension in-dwelling” for opening a new space for thinking silence as a deep structure or an existential of human enacted cognition.