ABSTRACT

In this essay we shall inquire into the functioning of language and thought. Such an inquiry is necessary primarily because over the ages thought and language have developed in a form that is by now mainly one of fragmentation. Of course, there is a real need for thought and language momentarily to focus attention on one thing or another, as the occasion demands. But when each such thing is regarded as separately existent and essentially independent of the broader context of the whole in which it has its origin, its sustenance, and its ultimate dissolution, then one is no longer merely focusing attention, but, rather, one is engaged in breaking the field of awareness into disjoint parts, whose deep unity can no longer be perceived.