Silence Confronts Discourse: Uncontrollable Breaks in the Vernacular of Dominance

Abstract Human freedom is often defined in terms of control, which makes the uncontrollable seem to be a limit to freedom. This paper argues that the uncontrollable can also be an important precondition for certain forms of freedom. The argument sets out from Agamben’s claim that there is a special kind of freedom in being capable of assuming one’s ‘impotentiality,’ i.e., there is freedom in understanding how the actualized happens against the background of something else not being actualized. The paper discusses how Agamben’s analysis is mirrored in Heidegger’s construction of the relationship between discourse and silence. It is shown that discursive exchanges must also always be seen as a realization of a relationship between the potential and the impotential. What is said makes sense against the background of what is not said. An awareness of this underlying structure can become a resource for social critique.