The word and the empty talk

Abstract

Due to cultural changes, a gap between the words used and the current life arises repeatedly. We could call this phenomenon „emptying” or „deflation of words”, which produces an „empty talk”, without reference to reality. As a key to the understanding of such phenomena we present here the category of the word, as it has been developed by the Austrian thinker Ferdinand Ebner. Therefore, in the first part the Ebner's concept of the word is shown. The word is presented in its reference to idealism, existentialism, love, truth and the validity of its „being-spoken“.n the light of the category of the word, the dialogue appears as a peculiar dialectic between the word and the silence, where the silence is understood as a refusal to speak empty words, to speak without a „Thou”, as the rejection of the monologue. in contrast to the dialogue, the monologue shows up as ignoring the„Thou”in other people, as ignoring the other as someone who „has the word” and is connected with what Ebner called „idealism”.In the last section, these considerations are applied to the dominant trends in today's social situation and education. The monological tendencies seem to dominate here,but they do not appear to lead people to happiness they promise them – according to modern happiness studies. The dialogical access opens better prospects in this situation.