ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the notion of particularity as a communicative phenomenon. Picking up with Schutz, a review of phenomenology of the apprehension of the other is undertaken. Following, it is argued that there are unaccounted-for components of otherness that cannot be adequately or accurately received outside explicit communication, specifically the other’s own unique interiority. Transitioning to the work of Walter Ong and Corey Anton, the chapter then examines interiority and its evolution related to communication technology, and the role of intentionality and givenness in accepting and legitimating the existence and uniqueness of the other. To address concerns about the ability to address and receive particularity via mediated communication, the chapter then examines the role of voice. Voice is defined as the revelation of one’s interior, and it exists independent of sound. In the chapter, particularity is identified as the reciprocal recognition of the other’s unique consciousness (interiority) through voice within a context of belief. Voice, in the context of this chapter, is the expression of one’s interiority. Interiority is one’s unique consciousness that belongs to no other human being nor ever will.
