Formulation of the claim
The human being is defined as a second addressee, not merely as an object outside discourse.
Explanation
In this part of Arkoun’s thought, the human being is understood within a relationship of reception and response, that is, as a party that enters into the discursive structure and does not stand outside it. Its presence is not a silent presence, but one determined by what is addressed to it and by the answer it brings forth.
This entails that supplication and worship are not regarded as acts separate from discourse, but as a response that belongs within a semantic exchange. In this way, the meaning of the human being is formed by its position in this exchange, not by its being an isolated element.
Its place in the book’s argument
This atom is connected to Arkoun’s context, in which he rethinks the relationship between the human being and religious discourse, where it is not enough to describe the content, but attention is also paid to the position of the addressee within the structure. It converges with the book’s theses, which highlight the tension between discourse and the positions it produces for both the recipient and the actor.
Limits of the claim
This atom should not be loaded with more than it can bear; it does not present a complete theory of the human being, nor does it settle everything related to religious action or moral responsibility. It points to a functional position within a specific discourse, not to a comprehensive definition of human existence.
Brief evidence
- Symbol against ordinary word, or living metaphor against dry concept: by this I mean the conflict of exegeses and interpretation that in Islam took the form of the conflict between the outward and the inward, that is, the literal external meaning and the hidden inward meaning. Here too, one can measure the decisive importance of the sacred texts’ impact in the relationship that binds human beings to language, then the pressure of this impact—through all forms of expression—on the socio-historical reality and the world. Islamic tradition transformed the dual pair inward-outward into a political-religious conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and thus came to cover over, through ideologized conflicts and mutual theological curses between the two sides, the true stake of a famous distinction that had mobi