ABSTRACT
Finding the right words to articulate dimensions of experience is not easy. First, it takes careful analysis, and at this point phenomenology is very close to ordinary language philosophy: we have to consider what we precisely mean when we use a certain expression in a particular context. For instance, my argument is based on the idea that it makes sense to distinguish between learning and practising, but that it is not meaningful to connect this distinction to the opposition of knowledge and skill whenever ‘school’ contexts are involved. In order to find the required degree of precision and nuance, it is also necessary to use language itself in a very conscious way. Language is not just a means of communication reporting on research results, but itself plays a part in the arguments philosophers make. For instance, throughout my text I abundantly italicise words and expressions. When I write ‘that a true experience of possibility is not a matter of strengthening one’s own position in life’, it does make a difference that ‘true’ is stressed in this way. It indicates that when we only take into consideration the type or definition of possibility
expressed in the second part of the sentence (self-actualisation), we might miss out on an experience of potentiality that is more subtle. This is, however, not to say that defining possibility in terms of self-actualisation is not a true idea. So, the use of italics helps to articulate something that is difficult to express directly and which in this example goes beyond the plain and superficial opposition between true and false. Something similar is to be found in my attempts to stress the ‘can’ part in the expression ‘I can’ to point out an experience of being-able that is about being able as such (rather than being able to do this or being able to do that).
