Becoming conscious about the existence of the non-existents
logic, language and speech acts
pp. 225-234
in: Sangeetha Menon, Nithin Nagaraj, Binoy (eds), Self, culture and consciousness, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
The things which do not exist in spite of our belief that they do exist is the topic of this discussion. One such thing is the different characters of the child literature like a horse with wings, giants, dwarfs and talking beasts. These are the characters construed by the adults to engage the young minds in a type of transactions which remains central in creating a world other than that particular type which is ingrained in the collective (un)conscious of the people as the official version of the existence. These characters, then, can be viewed as a missing link between the way things are existent and non-existent—the way the irrational ponder over the rational. Characters of children's literature are extremely useful in understanding how non-existents exist. Addressing this issue will lead us to an understanding of how our knowledge of the world is linguistically constructed. What remains crucial in the human ability of producing rich alternatives to "actuality'? While exploring these questions, our task will be to explore gradually what and how a thing is existent. This, in turn, will result in an understanding of the way our rational imagination has its roots in the seemingly irrational days of our childhood. Humans are distinguished not by what is produced either as (non)existent or as (im)possible—but by the way they are produced linguistically. In this process of producing/imaging (non)existence, the role of language remains extremely crucial.