ABSTRACT
One can talk to another, one can even be in a dialogue with another but need not necessarily be in conversation with the other. The silence and the decoding of the unsaid so essential to conversation is made possible through 'reading' non-verbal gestures, moods and emotions that accompany the spoken word. If self-talking is to be a conversation then it has to be characterised not just by responses to thoughts that philosophers have but also by silences between thoughts, and by the influence of moods and emotions on the meaning of the conversation. There are at least two modes in which self-conversation is possible: reading and writing. An essential ethical element that makes us understand self- conversation as the primary model of ethics is that of 'quietness'. Cognition is not mere representation but consists of embodied actions. This leads Francisco Varela to suggest that there are two important cognitive modes: immediate coping and deliberation/analysis.
