What does (not) count as violence

on the state of recent debates about the inner connection between language and violence

Burkhard Liebsch

pp. 7-24

in: Martin Endreß, Benjamin Rampp (eds), Violence - phenomenological contributions, Human Studies 36 (1), 2013.

Abstract

This paper raises the question whether language and violence are internally connected. It starts from the experience of violence and from its theoretical interpretation as violence in the context of political forms of life which are challenged by complaints about violence. Such forms of life have to confront this issue because they are supposed to be responsive to claims and demands of others who articulate violence as an experience of violation. Whether a kind of responsive ethos may be based on the suspected inner connection between language and violence is being discussed at the end.