RITA MASCIALINO

1. RITA MASCIALINO THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF DYNAMIC SPATIALITY

2. Abstract • Scientific background of the hypothesis; • Hypothesis concerning the spatial analysis of the meaning of language; • Discussion of the hypothesis by means of the analysis and interpretation of the dynamic spatiality intrinsic to Aphorism 1 by Franz Kafka, including a comparison with current interpretations and translations; • Conclusions.

3. 1. Scientific background - Broad scientific background: • Evolution, semiotics - Specific scientific background: • Basic neurophysiology (unconscious and conscious brain, space processing, language)

4. Not only a historical perspective upon the meaning of language • The historical perspective upon language refers to the surface of semiosis; • At the root of semiosis there are the various forms of adaptations to life produced by evolution starting from the most ancient time, where no language was there, where other animals different from humans were there, where bacteria were there; as evolution produces change by building novelty upon the previous older structures which are not utterly eliminated by the new ones, more recent developments and semioses bring with them the trace of their ancient origin which can be identified through the various biological sciences and also through the analysis of the cultural development, eminently through the analysis of language; • Space processing, originating life unavoidably in an environment, is one of the most ancient and unfailing forms of adaptation selected by the environment; as such, it is also at the basis of any semiotic process since this has to be fit to the environment;

5. Not only a historical perspective upon the meaning of language • Language is the most recent sign system produced by the human brain; sounds, rhythm, words and syntax build its historical structures; the spatial processing of experience carried by language builds its deep structures; • The spatial skeleton of semiosis builds itself at an unconscious level; language is eminently there to make the unconscious level of semiosis conscious, in other words: expressing words is the final conscious act of an unconscious brain work of projecting experience as adaptation; • This most complex intersection of unconsciousness and consciousness which is intrinsic to the most various elaborations of semiosis from the most concrete level to the most abstract and symbolic one, reflects itself on language as its basis; this intersection can be caught on an objective niveau by going beyond the historical surface of meaning and by identifying the objective spatial net carried by language, in other words: by the spatialization of language.

6. 2. Hypothesis concerning the spatial investigation of the meaning of language • Hypothesis: The present hypothesis (Mascialino 1997 and ff.) is finalized to provide text analysis with an objective basis. It centers upon the spatialization of any experience as space processing is considered to be the skeleton of the objective structures of semiosis, of ancient and evolved sign systems, of language, both at an unconscious and conscious level. Core of the hypothesis is the reconstruction of the spatial structure of semiosis and experience carried by words. • Key concepts or technical terms of the hypothesis (meqrima 1997 and ff.): “Dynamic spatiality”; “Endospatial scheme”; “Exospatialscheme”; “Endoplot”; “Exoplot”.

7. Pointsof reference of the keywords • The “dynamic spatiality” refers to the general spatial skeleton of experience carried by language both at a unconscious and conscious level, at an explicit and implicit level; • The “exospatial scheme” refers to the dynamic spatiality specifically intrinsic to the actions expressed by verbs, subjects, objects and syntax; • The “endospatial scheme” refers to the dynamic spatiality specifically intrinsic to the motions supporting the actions expressed by verbs, subjects, objects and syntax; • The “exoplot” and the “endoplot” respectively refer to the whole of the exo- and endospatial schemes when forming a meaningful context.

8. 3. Discussion: Franz Kafka’s Aphorism 1 • Original German text of Aphorism1 (Ich irre ab.) Der wahre Weg geht übereinSeil, das nicht in der Höhe gespannt ist, sondern knapp über dem Boden. Es scheint mehr bestimmt stolpern zu machen, als begangen zu werden. • The linguistic forms highlighted in crimson are the main object for the analysis of the aphorism’s meaning. The bracketed sentence belongs to the original text of Kafka. It has generally been arbitrarily eliminated in all editions concerning Kafka’s aphorisms, therefore the brackets.

9. A preliminary note about interpreting original and translated texts • By a native reader, texts are interpreted on a unique linguistic level. The reader can understand them or not. • By a foreign reader, texts are interpreted on an interlinguistic or double level. The reader can understand them or not. • By a reader of translations, texts are interpreted on a unique linguistic level, that of the reader’s language: • If the translator has understood the original text, the reader can understand the text of the translation or not; • If the translator has not understood the original text he has translated, the reader cannot in any case understand the meaning of the original text. In this case, the activity of translating foreign texts will make no sense. Aphorism 1 by F. Kafka is an example of how a text can be misunderstood: Its meaning seems to be simple only if one does not understand the problems it harbors, as we are going to see.

10. Analysis of the dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the meaning of Aphorism 1First premise: Dynamic spatiality of the “true way” • Basic spatiality of the “way”: 1.concretely, a way has a spatiality of connecting places; 2.metaphorically, a way has a spatiality of connecting concepts or abstract qualities; • Basic spatiality of the “true way”: metaphorically, the true way leads to the abstract quality of truth; grammatically, the true way is the subjectof the sentence, i.e., the walker who accomplishes the action of going to truth is metaphorically and grammatically the true way itself.

11. Analysis of the dynamic spatiality intrinsic to Aphorism 1Second premise: Dynamic spatiality of the “rope” • Basic spatiality of a “rope”: 1.concretely, it essentially has a spatiality of constriction and of hindering motions of things as well as of living beings; it can be a sign for ‘No thoroughfare’, or can be an obstacle to be jumped over, or can be used as a hidden trap for tripping over, or can be a tightrope for a tightrope walker; 2.metaphorically, it can be all this on the abstract level of thought, in the specific context it has the spatiality of a trap on the true way, i.e., on the way to truth; • Basic spatiality of the “rope”: 1.concretely, it has the spatiality of a rope put transversally on the true way in order to make stumble; 2. metaphorically, it has the spatiality of a moral stumbling;

12. Linguistic expressions of Aphorism 1 which carry a complex spatiality • The linguistic expressions which are considered to be more relevant to the meaning of the piece and which will be therefore analysed in this presentation according to their dynamic spatiality are the following ones: • geht über ein Seil • stolpern • begangen zu werden • (Ich irre ab.)

13. Dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the meaning of the linguistic form highlighted in crimson 1. geht über ein Seil • [The verb gehen über + acc. represents a motion from one place to another by passing over or across something: the two places expressed by gehen über + acc. in the context are the two parts into which the true way is divided by a transversal rope; the action of gehen über + acc. means the walker, specifically the way itself which is the subject of the verb, is going from one half of the way to the other by advancing across or over or beyond a transversal rope; gehen über + acc. Does not and cannot mean to go along.] • Goal directed motion: Goal directed action: endospatial schemeexospatial scheme TRUE WAY ROPE

14. Dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the meaning of the linguistic form highlighted in crimson 2. stolpern • [stolpern means to stumble, to trip over, in the case at issue: to stumble over a transversal rope; metaphorically, in the specific context of general moral principles such as truth and deception, good and evil, stolpern means also to commit something wrong; walkers including the true way itself can stumble over the rope.] • Goal directed motion: Goal directed action: endospatial scheme exospatial scheme TRUE WAY ROPE

15. Dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the meaning of the linguistic form highlighted in crimson 3. begangen zu werden • [The verb begehen + acc. is the transitive form of gehen, to go. Consequently, the basic dynamic spatiality of begehen is that of a transit through a place and within a place without any obstacles and in any direction, e.g.: “Der Weg ist begehbar”, “The way is transitable”, i.e., one can transit or go on and over it; metaphorically, the spatiality refers to feasts which are celebrated, to crimes and sins which are committed, this in the spatial original sense of a trans-gressing intendedas a possible and free transit into crime and the like; begehen does not mean togo along as a motion parallel to something.] • Goal directed motion: Goal directed action: endospatial scheme exospatial scheme TRUE WAY ROPE

16. Dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the meaning of the linguistic form highlighted in crimson 4. (Ich irre ab.) • [abirren is a verb composed by irren, to wander and the preposition ab, which means separation, therefore the meaning of deviating, of separating in the sense of interrupting the advancement on a way in order to take a different direction; metaphorically, irren means to be mistaken according to the spatiality of not knowing where to go, and abirren means to separate oneself from a direction and to wander without knowing the direction, i.e., to loose the way, to leave the rightway, concepts coherently linked to the spatiality of stolpern and of begehen.] • Goal directed motion: Goal directed action:endospatial scheme exospatial scheme TRUE WAY ROPE

17. First schematic meaning of Aphorism 1 according to its dynamic spatiality • The true way is the way of and to truth; truth is generally considered a main value as well as a difficult goal in human life; this implies the presence of some not easy tests to be faced by humanity on the way to truth; on the contrary, in Aphorism 1 the true way does not harbor any obstacles, but only a hidden trap to stumble and fall; • Being the true way the subject of the verb gehen über, it is the true way itself which can stumble over the trap it harbors in itself and by so doing it does not advance to its goal: the place where truth stays, i.e., truth;

18. First schematic meaning of Aphorism 1 according to its dynamic spatiality • Possible walkers who stumble and fall, including the true way, want to reach truth, but they do not get aware of the trap and can stumble; thus, because of the stumbling, they cannot transit to truth; nevertheless, having not seen the trap, they obviously do not deviate because of the trap and so, after stumbling, they do not reach truth, but remain on the true way; • As to the walker who wants to reach truth and gets aware of the deception, he does not want to stumble and fall, therefore he avoids stumbling by deviating; so he abandons the true way and by so doing he not only renounces to truth, but he is also excluded from the true way; • As the spatiality of the metaphorical verb abirren-todeviate from the direction-to loose the right way shows, the deviation of the walker is considered to be a fault;

19. First schematic meaning of Aphorism 1 according to its dynamic spatiality • We have got now a first approximated understanding of the meaning of Aphorism 1. We could be satisfied with the meaning of Aphorism 1 as it is officially understood. But if we see the very complex problems that are in Kafka’s text and which do not find any clarification in the level of spatialization achieved till now, we cannot be satisfied with a meaning which seems to be too banal for it to be a meaning produced by Kafka. Therefore, we must spatially go more deeply into the text in order to clarify the mentioned problems we have seen, and this is what we are going to do.

20. Exegetic problems in Aphorism 1 by Franz Kafka The main exegetic problems intrinsic to the interpretation of Aphorism 1, refer to the spatiality of the verb a.begehen, of the verb b.stolpern and of the verb c.abirren, which all three imply the meaning of fault; a. The common meaning of begehen is that of transiting over a place but also that of committing something wrong or of celebrating a feast; in the context of the aphorism, passing over the rope to reach truth coincides with a transgression, as though aiming to truth were a transgression and were a transgression to be committed: The rope has the aim to be passed over/trans-gressed, but seems not to be there to be passed over, to be trans-gressed or make commit its trans-gression as it should be, but seems to be there to only make stumble; b. The verbstolpern metaphorically refers to committing a fault and the committing a fault by stumbling avoids prosecuting on the way to truth, and by so doing it also avoids committing the trans-gression of or passing over the rope, therefore: • We are in front of something which has a contradictory surface: the stumbling is the effect of a fault which avoids passing over the rope or committing the fault of going over the rope, and the possible walkers should also commit a fault if they would pass over the rope without stumbling, this because the rope is there to be transited/trans-gressed; c. The verb abirren meansto deviate, to loose the direction, but metaphorically also to loose the right way, so that the deviating walker, who would go over/trans-gress the rope in order to achieve truth, but does not want to stumble and fall, i.e., does not want to commit the fault of stumbling, in any case commits a fault, that of deviating, of loosing the right way; • Thus, there are a three faults: b. that of stumbling, a. that of passing over the rope and c. that of not wanting to commit both faults of stumbling and passing over the rope by deviating; latter seems to be the greatest fault because it excludes the protagonist not only from truth, but also from the way to truth.

21. Solutions of the problems intrinsic to Aphorism 1 by Franz Kafka according to its dynamic spatiality • Resuming: As passing over the rope to reach truth is trans-gressing the rope, i.e., committing the fault concerning the will to achieve truth, it is to understand 1.) why the will to truth can be a fault: • 1.) Truth is the main goal of intelligence and knowledge, and intelligence and knowledge have no moral values in themselves, it is the use of truth, intelligence and knowledge that can be moral or not, therefore the will to truth as a goal of intelligence and knowledge can be put on the same level or equalized with a will to power which is separated from any moral value; the achievement of truth in its absoluteness, i.e., truth as the place to which the true way leads, requires a behaviour which does not make compromises, i.e., a behaviour which never stumbles and falls, i.e., which has an elegant concrete and metaphorical step; the presence and possibility of stumbling and falling put the true way, i.e., truth, within a more humble level where the inelegance of weakness can be accepted;

22. Solutions of the problems intrinsic to Aphorism 1 by Franz Kafka according to its dynamic spatiality • Resuming:As deviating in order not to stumble and fall, i.e., not to committing a fault, and renouncing to transgressing the rope, i.e., to committing a trans-gression in order to achieve truth, is also a fault, it is to understand 2.) why not committing faults is a fault itself: • 2.) If a walker will reach truth as the final goal of the true way without accepting a possible stumbling, he will reach truth separated from a more human vision of life; if he renounces to this truth because of the possible failure, he renounces to a more human vision of life, a vision which lacks faults, but lacks also comprehension and compassion for human weakness.

23. Deep meaning of Aphorism 1 according to its dynamic spatiality • As those who stumble, including the true way, do not deviate and so doing do not loose the right way but remain on it with the fault of having stumbled, the right way implicitly results in Aphorism 1 to be that of accepting the humble human condition of stumbling and falling, whereas who does not accept the stumbling and abandons the way of and to truth or does not enter the true way, looses the right way which is that of more human values which accept weakness; consequently, the values of life do not consist in Aphorism 1 in the ambitious will to know truth which is both a main goal of intelligence and no ethical value – knowledge and truth have no moral value –; thus, the true values the deviating walker implicitly looses by deviating are to be found in the refusal of an intelligence and a truth which are separated from a more human vision of life.

24. Short example of a cultural note founded on the dynamic spatiality implicit to the meaning carried by language • To the dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the above implicit refusal of the value of intelligence in favour of more human principles, is implicit Kafka’s refusal of the 1.) German culture, of 2.) the German language and the 3.) humanization of the figure of the devil: 1.) The German culture focuses upon the concept of Leistung, of a superior performance of intelligence without compassion intended as weakness, as the model of the overman shows; Kafka saves human weakness and gives it the right to stay on the true way; 2.) German is pre-eminently a language of logical superiority; its drastically hierarchical syntax shows this; it is a language where there is very little place for exceptions, i.e., consideration of particular cases; the world of concepts and emotion dresses German in Kafka and Kafka has deeply felt the beauty intrinsic to the logical power of German as his writing show, has felt also its risks and has condemned it; 3.) In the universal context of moral principles within which the aphorism moves, the spatiality of stolpern implicitly associates the spatiality of the devil, from Greek díabállo, to transversally throw something making stumble and dividing from the goal to be achieved; if the devil in the Garden of Eden is a negative symbol because he makes stumble Eve and Adam making them be driven out the Garden and loose immortality, in Kafka’s true way he on the one side continues making stumble, but in so doing he implicitly becomes a positive instrument of humanization, because he hinders the trans-gression of the rope and with it the whole negative symbolism we have seen through the spatialization of its meaning.

25. Short example of a biographical note founded on the dynamic spatiality carried by language • Kafka’s implicit full refusal of the German culture and first of all of the German language finds an explicit expression in 1.) his last desire and in 2.) his relation to his mother: 1.) If he could have recovered, he would have gone to Palestine in order to do the job of a waiter, i.e., of a servant of his people, of a man who comes back to the true way and accepts falling down, for he accepts a more human vision of life, which does not consist in the superiority of an intelligence separated from ethical principles, but in love and service to humanity, as the job symbolizes being the job of a man who gives his people the concrete and symbolic food for a life worth to be lived; 2.) He said he could not love his mother and all the world of values delivered in general by the mother because of the German name Mutti for mum,which delivered German values; he would have preferredthe sweet Jewish word ima, with its Jewish values not because they were of Jewish origin, but because they were more human.

26. Italian “immanent” translation of Aphorism 1(by Rita Mascialino) (Io devio.) La vera via va oltre una corda che non è tesa in alto, ma appena sopra il suolo. Sembra destinata più a fare inciampare che ad essere oltrepassata. • The verb va oltre utterly corresponds to the German geht über in the sense of going over; oltrepassaremeans to transit, but also to transgress a set limit, therefore the above translation has saved something of the meaning of to commit intrinsic to the original German verb begehen; gehen über and begehen have a common part in gehen, andare oltre e oltrepassare have a common part in oltre; besides, the verb gehen über and begehen refer to the same action of going across and over, so as andare oltre and oltrepassare.

27. Falsification of the dynamic spatiality intrinsic to the following linguistic forms in current interpretationsand translations • über das Seil interpretedas along the rope If the rope would lay along the true way, it would be parallel to the true way, but in this case there should not be gehen über + acc. in German, which means a motion to, but another preposition for a motion within a place, i.e., a position: Der Mann geht auf der Straße (he goes up and down, but always remains on the same place, i.e., on the street); besides, stumbling or tripping of walkers would be impossible with along, requiring stumbling or tripping the spatiality of a more or less perpendicularly intersecting motion and not that of a parallel motion. • Seil interpreted as a tightrope If the rope would be a tightrope for a tightrope walker, there could not be an accusative, because it would be a motion within the same place and there would be no change of place, but a position, not a motion to, and another preposition as follows: Der wahre Weg geht auf einem Seil; besides, the tightrope could not lay just over the ground, otherwise it would be a tightrope used as a normal rope and the spatiality of a tightrope would be useless.

28. Falsification of the dynamic spatiality intrinsic to relevant linguistic forms in current interpretations • Seil interpreted as a tripwire If the rope would be a tripwire, this would implicitly carry with itself the spatiality of a bomb or of a military action, which is utterly absent in the context. • begangen zu werden interpreted as to be walked along/(up)on With the preposition along there is a contradiction with an impossible stumbling as above; with the preposition (up)on there is the spatiality of a tightrope used as a normal rope as above or the spatiality of an absurd walking the transversal tightrope; most important, the complex meaning of to commit, in which the most relevant concept consists, is utterly lost.

29. Schematic meaning of Aphorism 1 according to current interpretations • In almost all interpretations, there is a rope which goes along the true way, i.e., there are a true way and a rope which advance parallel to each other; • No reason can be found in the context why the true way runs along a rope, so that the conceptual area for true way and rope becomes absurd; • No stumbling of the true way over the rope being possible, the whole area intrinsic to the concept of true way and truth in the original German text is swept away; • The spatiality of the verb begangen zu werden becoming that of walking along (parallel motion) or walking (up)on (tightrope walker), the above absurdity is reinforced and the deep meaning of the aphorism is swept away;

30. Schematicmeaning of Aphorism 1 according to current interpretation • Seldom, geht über is interpreted with goes over, where the spatiality of stumbling is maintained, but at the end being the verb begangen zu werden in any case always interpreted as to be walked along or (up)on, there is again absurdity: one cannot find a reason why a rope set just above the ground for stumbling should be suddenly walked along as a rope parallel to the street or be walked (up)on as a transversal or parallel tightrope. • Interpreters generally do not consider the first sentence of Aphorism 1 concerning the deviation as belonging to the text of the aphorism and arbitrarily do not quote it in the collections of Kafka’s aphorisms as well as in their interpretations; consequently, since the first sentence on the contrary and most relevantly belongs to the conceptual area of Aphorism 1 in Kafka’s thought, the original meaning results decapitated and increasing confusion in comprehension cannot be avoided.

31. Conclusions • Most scholars write in their studies no meaning would be at disposal in Kafka’s language for a logical interpretation, being Kafka pre-emintently an author of the absurd. If one remains on the surface of meaning, then Kafka’s language can be a language of the absurd. But if one undertakes an objective analysis of the meaning of language, then Kafka’s language proves to be utterly logical even though so complex that its interpretation requires a subtile inferential work of investigation. We have seen how the investigation of language done through the identification of the “dynamic spatiality” at the basis of meaning (Mascialino 1997 and ff.) can give an objective instrument to identify meaning at the conscious and unconscious level, at the explicit and implicit level. Thanks to the spatialization of meaning also psychoanalysis can get the objective basis it lacks for its investigations to be no more subjective. Thanks to the identification of the dynamic spatiality of language falsifications and verifications of interpretations are possible on an objective basis. Therefore also the influence of the historical background does not run the risk to be invented.