Introduction

Philosophy is interesting but communication is equally interesting. Both,

philosophy and communication are subjects that will always be remembered. Having
studied both, we decided to undertake this study, in order to look at the connection and
relationship between the two disciplines, which is fascinating. That is why we undertook
this venture and this effort to write this book.
In this book, we will look at the different aspects that characterise the study of the
Philosophy of Communication, mainly; we will establish the sense of a philosophy of
communication, and look at the link between modernity, post modernity and globalisation.
We will also explore the phenomenological understanding and problematical nature
of communication; the truth of communication and then we will study the anthropology of
communication. In the final analysis, we will seek to look at the limits and the other side
of communication.
This book is aimed at helping students who venture into the study of the Philosophy
of Communication, which is usually a university course. This book would serve as a
manual to help in delineating the main themes of the Philosophy of Communication but it
would also help in helping the man and woman of today to appreciate the value and
importance of communication when studied from a philosophical context.
We have in this book tried, as much as possible, to use terminology that is
simplified, deliberately avoiding the difficult philosophical jargons. We hope that our
expressions and the treatment of the subject in general will offer us important themes and
explanations that can help us to appreciate this discipline.

Dr. Fr. Charles Ndhlovu - Mkhalirachiuta

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 1 Philosophy of Communication

Communication Sciences are not old and have come to the forefront of scientific
research only towards the middle of last Century. Back then, research was rather more
empirical, logical and the theories were cybernetic, scientific and social. We have to mention
from the beginning that Philosophy of Communication as an autonomous discipline is in a
bigger part still to be constituted. However, at present, we can still say that the material
object of Philosophy of communication is the phenomenon of communication in the globality
of its dimensions. These dimensions of the Philosophy of Communication include, mass
communication which consists of the press, cinema, radio, TV, advertising, propaganda, new
computerized media, telematics and robotics. Other elements include public opinion,
business communication, intrapersonal communication, interpersonal communication and
intercultural communication. Other important elements that could be categorized as the
elements and material of communication include, environment, contexts, times and spaces in
which the communication process occurs, networks, set of flows, relations, trade exchanges,
dialogue, relations and everything that happens in the area of communication in which people
interpret, give perspectives, set goals and objectives in the communication process. In a way
then, the material object of the Philosophy of Communication, as given here is what the
Philosophy of Communication studies, namely, the Phenomenon of Communication.
The scientific attention to the phenomenon of communication, especially in its social
and public face has developed since the forties, especially in the United States. This period
can be considered as the foundational current of the Philosophy of Communication especially
in the years between 1940 – 1960. This period included studies on cybernetics, the empirical
- functionalist approach of the mass media, the use of the structuralist method and its
linguistic applications. In the 1970’s and 1980’s there were some other developments for
example the problematisation of the political economy of communication, there was also the
development of studies on the effects of communication. The beginnings of the Philosophy of
Communication can be traced from the philosophical reflections on language, truth,
knowledge, social relations of the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas

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Aquinas, among others, who since antiquity gave views on communication without
necessarily thematizing communication, as we know it today as a developed discipline.
Even in the Anglo-Saxon world, from the thirties and sixties of the last century, there
have been interesting directions towards the Philosophy of Communication, for example by
the pragmatism of John Dewey or the analytic philosophy of language of Ludwig
Wittgenstein or the critical rationalism of Karl Popper or indeed the liberal ethics of Bertrand
Russell. Interesting views are also found in the continental philosophers, people who were
very interesting in their philosophical study of communication. We can here cite the
reflection on life-worlds and the poetry of Martin Heidegger, perspectives on inter-personal
relationships of Martin Buber and those who have been called philosophers of inter-
subjectivity like Romano Guardini, Ebner, or post-Husserlian phenomenology of Hartmanm
Nicolai, Max Scheler, Elias Stein or the philosophers of values. We can also here include the
personalism of Emmanuel Mounier or Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson.
Finally, in the 1980’s and 1990’s there has developed some lines of communicational
thought but with a philosophical character, especially in France. It is there that there
developed the post-structuralist thoughts of Derrida, J. Baudrillard, E. Morin, P. Levy, L.
Sfez, B. Miège, Breton and Lyotard who accentuated the epistemological, methodological and
epistemological aspects. There were also the thoughts in Germany of N. Luhmann, O. Apel,
and J. Habermas who instead deepened the centrality and need for authenticity in social
communication through the ethical aspects and foundational-hermeneutics. We could also
here take into account the studies on the philosophy of communicative action of H. Arendt, J.
Habermas, Apel, and N. Luhmann. All these Philosophical thoughts show the basis and
foundation of the Philosophy of Communication.
With regard to theory, we can say that is it unlikely that one could talk of a general
theory of communication. There is self-imposition of the need for the interdisciplinarity in
the study of sciences and there is a general preference that sciences are not studied in their
individuality but in their interdisciplinarity. The different disciplines are invited to interact
and collaborate. In any case, interdisciplinarity does not obstruct the specificity of the
sciences, within the specificity of the sciences of information and communication. Such an
approach in sciences leads to novelty and depth of the phenomenon of contemporary
communication. In this sense then, the philosophy of communication is very close to the

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social theories of communication. It is also very close to the philosophy of language but does
not identify with it since communication is not reduced to language. These two may have the
same philosophical point of view but they have different material objects. Philosophy of
Communication is also similar to the Theology of communication in the search for the
ultimate meaning.
It is true however that the claims of specificity of philosophical research today are
anything but obvious. This is the case because of the pluralistic nature of contemporary
philosophy. The same applies to the historical and cultural context in which we live today. A
context that is characterised by modern, post-modern, globalisation and glocal thoughts.
The starting point of philosophizing and Philosophy in general has its beginnings at
every point when there arises a radical question on an emerging issue in relation to the
personal and social life issues, with others, the world, on events, history and on a question
about God. We may ask questions about the world of communication in general, for example;
is communication an emotion, a fusion, a relationship or an interchange? How important is
the content of communication? What is the content of communication?
Moreover, from the epistemological, cognitive and strategic point of view; is
communication a phenomenon? Is communication always cultural? On the other hand, is it an
empirical test? Is it a process that needs dialogical hermeneutic interpretation? Is it enough
just to investigate techniques, the usefulness, and functional, individual, social, and economic
effects of communication? What is the ethics of communication? Is it enough just to have the
meaning, scope, scope, quality, and cognitive value of communication? Alternatively, does it
suffice just to have the scientific, empirical, logical and mathematical approach to
communication?
There are different tasks however, that are associated with philosophizing on
communication. There is the task of linguistic clarification, which answers the question, what
are you saying when you say this…? This has its roots and genesis in the analysis of
language according to L. Wittgenstein. The other task is that of the criticism of the pre-
judgments, which arise due to sectorial or unilateral myths, and the danger of these
prejudgements is to lead one into reductive communication and this is well expounded in
thought trends of Marxism, Habermas, Nihilism, Radicalism and Christian personalism. We
may add another task unifying and coordinating results of Sciences of communication and

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again this is clear in the thoughts of Dewey and Piaget. The task of philosophizing also
includes the search for new visions, perspectives, and the hypothesis on and for
communication as indicated by analytic philosophy of Dewey and Popper’s critical
rationalism. Then in philosophizing for communication, one searches for the ultimate sense
of communication, which is usually the case in Spiritualism, Personalism, Phenomenology,
Hermeneutics and Marxism.
The trends and cultural innovations of the 20th Century are marked by reason not
enlightenment, historicity and contextuality of thought and this has been the case up to
historicism. During this time, there we see that priority is given to practice as compared to
conscience and this trend has continued up to the thought trends of utilitarianism and
materialism. We also notice that there is more emphasis placed on the priority of language
compared to thought, and to the centrality of communication all through to the myth of the
word and communication. Priority is also given to technology, to science, technological
operations, to technicalism and to the myth of efficiency.
In the post-modern and hyper-modern era, on the anthropological level, there is a
noticeable crisis of the modern image of man. There is a conception of a Copernican man.
There is the idea of anthropocentrism and man as Homo faber with scientific, technical,
rational and transformative practices. All this led to the crisis of anthropological models of
the twentieth century, namely, Marxist, Personalist, Liberal, Socialist, Radical secularist and
the Technological and informational conception of man. This anthropocentric conception of
man has led to the axiological shift of values in that there is an emphasis placed on needs,
desire, emotions, search for subjectivity, rationality, planning and search for a new
citizenship. There is an increase in the new consciousness of new values, human rights,
subjectivity, ecology, sustainable development, peace, otherness, difference, interculturality,
mondiality, nationalism, fundamentalism, localism, and consumerism.
At the epistemological level, there are questions that are raised with regard to how one
knows something and the conditions of knowledge per se. There is what is referred to as Pars
destruens, which refers to a sunset of some ideologies like ideas of globality, inclusiveness,
and eternalizing, absolutizing and totalizing mentality. There is general relativization of
knowledge understood as being fragmented, differentiated, hypothetical, historically situated,
in progress and knowledge as being in constant search. This is clear when one refers to the

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book; l’inevitabile leggerezza el sapere’ of Kundera. Nevertheless, there is also the general
trend of Pars construens especially with regard to the man as becoming a good for mass
consumption, importance of talking to each other defined by pluralism, importance of
knowledge that interprets things, that gives new insights and perspectives, importance of
working on computer, and knowledge that alludes to something deeper and bigger.
Another important phase is that of globalisation and the general aspects of
globalisation involve entrepreneurship, international finance and globalized market, which on
the negative side bring about new forms of economic and political imperialism. Globalisation
is sustained by the new information technology, telematics, robotics, and biotechnology. It
favours the universalization of culture, and promotes the idea of going beyond localism and
nationalism. The risk however is that of promoting cultural homogeneity and in so doing,
there could be resistance from those who do not favour local and integral tendencies.
Globalisation pushes one towards the subjectivism of values, namely, whether we should
simply value what is good or we should value what is efficient. Globalisation favours the
concepts of ethics of tolerance and a vague religiosity. In so doing, it ends up favouring
relativism and causing fundamentalisms.
Globalisation favours intercultural dialogue but it is important that intercultural
dialogue should avoid the risk of being a new form of supremacy and a new form of western
cultural invasion. There should also be avoidance of global capitalism, but instead good
intercultural dialogue should promote sharing of ideals, operational convergence, justified and
legitimate differentiation, and discussion that respects the transcendence of truth and values.
There should also be consciousness of the limits of theories and research of the
anthropological, the universally human and not only cultural, the common good of a new
world citizenship, respect for the local, national, international, the worldly, the heavenly and
respect for a humanly dignified life for all people regardless their class or continent from
which they come from.
There is also need to think glocally. Globalization has paradoxically highlighted the
nakedness of the new west. The idea here is that the Western way of thinking is not the only
way of thinking or even the perfect and true way of thinking. It is only a point of view on the
world and life, hence there is need to talk and dialogue with other cultural points of view. For
example on the issue of homosexuality and other values that are imposed on Africa in order to

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get aid and assistance from the Europe, America and other parts of the world, it is important
to realise that the America or European way of thinking is not always the best.
It does not mean that it is imperfect but there is need to respect Africans on what they
believe in and why they generally refuse homosexuality and lesbianism. To tie aid to
homosexual and lesbian issues is not fair because Africans have a right to live their sexual
lives as they wish and as they believe. Aid that is tied to homosexual or lesbian compliance
should be rejected by all African countries because it destroys their right to choose the
direction and orientation of their sexual lives. Of course giving aid to groups that maim and
kill wantonly should be discouraged.
With globalization, all of us are called to think simultaneously, that is, to think locally,
rationally, humanly and internationally all at once. We are called to think not in single
thought, but in plural thought, that is in a more complex, and articulated way. We are
supposed to inevitably dialogue with others in our horizontality in order to reach the truth that
transcends all of us and yet is part of us. We are invited to think in an intrinsically open way
towards interdisciplinarity, interproblematicity, and towards the inter-mysteriousness in which
we are immersed and which surrounds us beyond our rational way of thinking and addressing
problems.
In other words, with globalisation, we are invited to open up more. We are invited not
to impose our ideas on others. We are supposed to respect each other without any group
having to crush the right of any group to exist. None of us should have the monopoly of
ideas. Each one of us must be given a chance regardless where they come from to speak
about their issues from their point of view and none of us should really be stoned to death,
tortured or indeed killed because they have a different point of view.
Globalisation opens a way that people of different cultures and races, people of
different countries and continents can come together, work together, coexist and live together
as long as they respect each other’s point of view, not only by word of mouth but also in
practice. People’s positions should be respected otherwise it is a point at which people of
different points of view may fail to coexist and live together.
For example, if people from India, America, Africa, Asia and Europe come to live
together, to be global is to respect what each of them believes. There is need for integration
on basic things but on those points where people different most profoundly, there should be

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respect for each other’s position. No one should force the other beyond limits through means
of torture. That is totally unacceptable and is a recipe for divisions, hatred and strife.
We may add here that in a book; by B. Miege, entitled; La pensée communicationelle,
and La comunicacion desde una perpectiva filosofica. Lectura introductoria, by Rizo M., and
then in the International encyclopaedia of communication, pages 354-358; we see that the
main ideas expressed by philosophers concerning communication can be classified under
pragmatics, hermeneutics, existential communication and pre-reflective communication.
Pragmatics can be referred to the linguistic approach and the restriction of the term sign to
language. In this sense pragmatics, studies the way in which language works as a
communication system.
Hermeneutics on the other hand is an art of the revitalization of the classical and
theological texts, which is done through the writing of commentaries. This concept is
extended to the concept of conversation and discourse because, according to the German
theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, understanding a text implies entering into
communication or conversation with its author. The hermeneutic circle deepens each
message by understanding it according to the historicity of the writer and this leads to what is
referred to as existential communication.
This could be extended to Socratic communication in which the recipient is reminded
that he or she is already in possession of the truth (without being aware), and that
communication evokes only the truth that one already knows. Therefore, communication is
not a transmission of information or truth, but an invitation to the awareness of what one
already has and owns. In this process, the communicator, according to Kierkegaard, speaking
of indirect communication, must be the initiator of the communication but must at the same
time disappear as the initiator. This is a big invitation to so many of us who find ourselves in
communication circles. We have to realise that we are not speaking to people who do not
know anything. The people know something but we have to help them become aware of what
they already know. As such, we ought to begin the communication process but we should
also be humble enough to progressively pass over the lead process to the recipients so that
they can become protagonists of the communication process. That is why communication is
not only a soliloquy or it is not only intercommunication but can be interpersonal, group or
ritual communication in which there is coordination and participation in the communication

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process. In such communication, the sender does not only impose his or her views but leaves
the recipient to give feedback and the feedback becomes the point of another communication
process and so on and so forth. It is from such communication that human beings come to
understand themselves. This self-understanding is a philosophical search for meaning and
that is probably why, the whole consolidated philosophical tradition from Plato to Heidegger
sees philosophy as a continuous communicative act between oneself and the other, identity
and difference in the search for truth.

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 2 Truth, value and responsibility of communication

It is important to realize that there are different issues that are taking place with
regard to communication. At the research level, there are different research attempts
taking place with regard to the cybernetic theory of information. Research is also ongoing
with regard to the semiotic, linguistic, structuralist and post-structuralist research, the
pragmatic aspects and the personal worlds, hermeneutics research of new insights, the set
of strong ideologies of the recent past and with regard to the cultural and technological
innovations of the XXI century.
At the technological and practical levels, there is the explosion of communication
in the mass media that is the newspapers, cinema, radio, and televisions. There is also a lot
going on with regard to the alphabetisation of visual and sensory knowledge. There is
progress in the development of new media, new computer technology, computer systems,
computers, mobile phones, email, and internet network and there is emphasis on
knowledge of interactivity.
Nevertheless, there is today the problem of truth, value and responsibility with
regard to communication. There is the problem of the relationship between
communication, reality and life. We have before us today the problem of simulation and
the question to ask is this; do we really express ourselves in communication? Do we really
represent reality in communication? Is there need for a critical hermeneutic in
communication? Is there need to assume personal responsibility in communication?
Finally, is there need for dialogue between the subject, the message and reality in
communication? We could ask some further questions, namely: should there be issuing of
messages without responsibility? What can we say additionally about communication that
is simply utilitarian and does not have reference points? What can we say about the
privacy of communication? All these are important questions and important issues to raise
with regard to communication.
We now move on to another important point about the reference of communication.
In linguistics, it means, to send again a linguistic sign, from a speaking subject to a non-
linguistic reality. In the broadest sense, it means the reference of a proposition. That to

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whom it refers to. What is the reference of this speech and text? What is its literary,
cultural, history, and social context? In communication, it means the relationship,
correlation, cross-reference and systemic between the source, message and receptor of the
message?
Nevertheless, there is a point at which referentiality becomes a problem in
communication. It becomes a problem if it accentuates the moment of de-construction and
reconstruction of the messages. It also becomes a problem if there is a risk to think about
the subject without the message, or in other words, if one never comes to think about the
receptor or partners of communication. There is another problem in referentiality of
communication if it departs from the images or representation to reach a point of
simulation. The risk here is that the message and the communicative product may go the
other way, namely, against the physical and material reality and may even reach a point
where another reality can be created. With the virtual reality, the use of communication
risks standing outside reality and creating another historical and social reality.
Another problem that could arise is that there is the risk that the coding or decoding
of the message could kill the reality (Baudrillard), rescind the reality, one may not arrive at
the reality, could prevent a direct, physical or face-to-face communication experience and
could give space to the use of market propaganda and to manipulation of people. In other
words, this communicative possibility seems to put into question the realistic dimension of
the reference of communication traditionally understood as the context, that is the
linguistic, semiotic, and visual sensory context, then the culture and the world of
ideals/values and the physical reality. It could create a separation, fracture, duplicity of
life, reality, relationship, and it could give rise to two separate layers of communication,
one lays that is physical and another layer that is virtual.
We can now here indicate some theoretical positions. We can here indicate only
two of them, namely the French post-structuralist deconstruction (Derrida, Baudrillard)
theory and the Post-Heideggerian hermeneutics (Vattimo). The main assertions are the
acknowledgment of the impossibility of an ontological foundation of legislation ethics.
Then we have the discrete, heard and fatal acceptance (epochal data) of the communicative
world and the insurmountability of cultural and historical codification and then the
reference to the community of communication of Apel and Habermas. Apel and Habermas,

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explain hermeneutics as foundations of preconceptions and the myth of the transparent
society (Vattimo). Another important element is the persuasion of the exhaustion of the
creative possibilities and the inter-textual. At the basis of all this are the ideas of
postmodern rationality and post-metaphysics with gradations of Luhmann, Apel, and
Habermas. There are also ideas of radical historicism, and fundamental scepticism, which
says that there is no truth but that there are only communicable images.
The foundational paradigm, other than just the superficial without roots, is the
critical theories, which emphasize the critical role of theoretical reason and the ethical role
of practical reason or aesthetics. Here, we can cite the Frankfurt School. We can also cite
the Popperian critical rationalism, which emphasizes responsibility and the appeal to the
rationality of man by Sartori. Another reference could be made to Neo-Thomistic critical
realism in which the knowing man is perceived and reconstructed intellectually or in which
man is expressed in a recreating way (Gilson). The same can be said of the forms of neo-
pragmatism (Rorty), which talks about the effects and subjects of communication. The
main assertions here other than the liberty of simulation of images as compared to the
reference is that there is need for an ethical discipline, and need for imposition of a code of
ethics and deontology (Popper) on which various authors can base themselves with regard
to the sense of the limit of human action. There is also need to capture the truth (to) by
screening, criticizing, and weighing it so that truth can be respected and be promoted.
There is also need to protect and promote the common good.
In a pragmatic sense, we highlight the production side of communication and the
connection more or less directed to realistic information and on the other hand need to look
at the side of the product, the message, and the space of expressiveness, freedom,
production and packaging of communication. On the side of fruition and use, we need to
look at the ability to enjoy what is attainable in life. Communication should refer to real
subjects, who seek the meaning of life and who pursue their self-realization even when this
can be problematic, individualist, and isolationist. In this sense, the reality of the subject
or subjects of communication cannot be put in brackets and not even the truth and value of
communication can be bracketed.
According to P. Queau, the current emphasis on the virtual is a reminder to change
ourselves, to discover the hidden in virtual reality, to seek new ways of abstraction and

12
subjective and community expression and to look at different perspectives of reality. We
should be careful here to realize that the concept of virtual includes the potential as
opposed to the actual and realised. It is also opposed to the real rather than the simulated.
In practice, it seems that we can say that the multiplicity of approaches and ways of
knowing help us to affirm the legitimacy of different perspectives of expressing ourselves
and capturing different dimensions of reality. The multiplicity of approaches also helps us
to capture and articulate the unit (not simple, not unique, but articulate and analogue of
human knowledge. It also reminds us of the need for internal criticism, subjective
hermeneutics, inter-subjective and intra-subjective discussion and dialogue of social,
cultural and scientific debate. Lastly, it helps us get the responsibility and ethics of
knowing the source of life and source of death; source of the individual, joy, happiness,
pain and suffering.
The problem of universal knowledge and the problem of realistic reference of
communication can be linked. It is the issue of how and if general concepts, if truth, and if
statements of principles are possible. It can be schematically, if there is a relationship
between concepts and reality, between the reconstructive or intellectual and critical
realism, between creativity and idealism and between conventionalism and nominalism.
We can notice the origin of ideas of Platonism in issues of re-knowing, innate ideas as
origin of rationalism, empiricism as based on particular sensations and processing of
general concepts of induction. We notice the origin of Kant ideas in the reconstructive
fruit of a priori synthetic judgement of sensations and transcendental categories, nominal
ideas that the reality is only that which can be thought of in terms of world, God, and I.
Kant’s ideas are also based on issues of practical postulates, and immortal and responsible
subjects, the world, the environment and that it is God who allows us to postulate the
synthesis between ethics, justice, happiness. The ideas of intuitionism of Bergson, and
Husserl’s Phenomenology have their roots in the eidos.
Another problem arises with regard to art, reality and ethics. The question to ask is
this; what is the relationship between art and reality? Is art an imitation of reality? Or
indeed, is art a representation of reality? Is it idealization and the expression of the spirit?
Is art an interpretation or significant reconstruction? The same could be asked with regard
to art and ethics. Should one do art just for the sake of art? On the other hand, should art

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be done with or without reference to reality, without reference to the meanings, and indeed
without reference to responsibility of the author? Is art indeed a drug or a therapy in the
words of Aristotle? Is art an instrument of social elevation? Is art educational? What
should we do to promote artistic freedom?
Similar issues could be raised with regard to the concept of truth. What is truth is
the question that is usually asked. Is it verifiability as it is referred to in positivism? Is it
just procedural logic as stipulated in Neo-positivism, or is it the adaequatio between
knower and known reality, adaequatio between the subject and the reality? Or is it the
adaequatio between reality and the subject? Alternatively, is truth the dialectical balance
between the two?
Or indeed, is truth existential, according to the relational systemic and dynamic
perspective? Or is truth only a typically human way of trying and wanting to be
transparent between the subject who could be an individual, group, or community and the
other who could be the self, the other, things, institutions, products, techniques, the world,
time, culture, and God? Or is truth a middle position between historicity and openness to
transcendence, to self-transcendence, to physical transcendence, to cultural and social
transcendence or indeed to religious transcendence? Such research for the truth will not
rule out but will rather include investigation, questionnaire, doubt, developments,
regressions, closures and openings.
A clear example of the truth, value and responsibility in communication can be seen
in the use of Television and an article entitled; una patente per fare TV, by Karl Popper
and John Condry brings out the idea in a good way. In this article, Popper concluded that
children are not to blame for the time spent watching television and that it is not their fault
if they receive distorted information through television. He explained this in a way that
leaves us without hope, saying that television will not disappear in the future, and that it is
unlikely that it will change to become a reasonably acceptable environment for the
socialization of children. This statement has a flicker of hope and optimism in the way that
he looked at the future as opposed to the pessimism of John Condry who gave an analysis
that does not leave us any hope. Condry said television cannot teach children who have to
learn gradually. They should not learn everything at once, as is the case with television,
which at times gives people full truth without having to give it in bits and pieces. Popper

14
said that television potentially is certainly, a tremendous force for evil but it could also be a
tremendous force for good and we can also add here that this is true of all means of
communication. The issue is not the medium itself, but what we use it for. Therefore, we
must start from examining the conscience of man before we can talk of the means. The
educative urgency urges us to debate this issue. Rendering the means of communication to
become a tremendous force for good might happen, but it is unlikely to happen. The reason
is that the task is terribly difficult. For him, we may not have the personnel to run good
programs and materials of good value for twenty hours a day.
It is much easier to find people who produce for twenty hours a day bad media
materials and maybe one or two hours a day of good quality. It is just hard to find
professionals who are actually able to produce things, to find materials that are interesting
and valuable at the same time. The level has dropped, because the television stations look
for programs that give them money rather than what adds value. They produce more and
more materials that are shoddy and sensational. The strange thing is that the sensational
materials are what are considered good. Examples are the materials of Pope Francis that
sell more, like pictures and books.
This is the task for talented people like Roberto Benini of the Ten Commandments
to produce good and interesting materials for sale. Today we are witnessing the invasion
of the media space with low quality products, produced by people with no talent and
preparation. I would say that this is functional for a system that has an interest in only
appealing to people’s emotions rather than reason. This is the case especially in dictatorial
regimes, and in the market dictatorship. In fact, in the era of the consuming man, the
reflecting man is less beneficial because he reflects on the real need of the product of
consumption.
Apart from this fundamental problem of finding talented people who can produce
good and attractive things, there is a second, equally important problem, namely, that there
are too many broadcast stations competing – and this is innate to the neo-liberal logic. It
also raises the question of disinformation by excess. For what do they compete? Obviously
to grab viewers and to earn money but they do not compete for educational purposes.
Certainly, they do not compete to produce programs of solid moral quality, worse still, in

15
the era of social networks, where children become producers of messages, without any
preparation by the very fact of being children.
The analysis of Condry, despite the fact that it does not leave us any hope, still has
the merit of not pouring out some illusory and unattainable recipes. The competitiveness,
high demand and low product quality, consumption of physical and cultural junk, and
when we add to that the issue of the decadence of the quality of food , art and freedom, all
this shows us that there is more wish to produce without thinking about the value and
moral quality of the product.
Popper was of the view that there is now a general trend of promoting what is
referred to as false democracy. The Television stations and mass media in general have
contributed to this false conception, which offers people culturally low programming, and
generally prevents them from raising their ideals and expectations. The same applies to
children who watch everything from morally bad programs to good ones. The question to
ask then is this; can you give a child what they need even when it is dangerous for them?
Some say, it’s the role of adults who know what is good and bad to decide what to give to
the baby, and that its parents who have to define what the child really needs.
Unfortunately, some parents fail in this responsibility. They do not teach children how to
choose good programs hence children use bad media products and end up liking them
more. As such, some children are not in the habit of watching good programs and are
accustomed to consume garbage that is spiced up with violence, sex and sensationalism.
This position is also a critique of functionalist theory and gratification and uses.
Nevertheless, in democracy, there is nothing but a principle of defence from
political, market, religious, fundamentalist, and cultural dictatorship. Together with this
conception is the idea that one has to offer what the masses want including products of
sensationalism, nudity, sex, violence, false beauty, false happiness and false wealth. This
is a new and more dangerous dictatorship. The problem with frequent repetition of such
programs is that the people fall into the trap, habit and addiction of such programs. That is
why, many young watch pornographic videos at night. Some of the young people reach
levels of addiction to these programs and end up incapable of living without such
programs. It is not only on the television but it happens also on telephones and
smartphones where people watch pornographic clips. All these clips can at times reach

16
levels of addiction. This becomes a big problem for the young people, and in fact, it
becomes a big problem to people of different age groups.
As a solution to these problems, there is need to protect the rights of the people
(especially children) so that they should be well-behaved. With regard to the relationship
between children, television, the internet, social networks, smartphones, and video games,
we are faced with the problem of evolution of the child, which takes place in the
environment in which they live and grow up. That is why, the videos and clips that they
see on a daily basis has an impact on their life. Children pick up most of the things from
what they see, observe and experience. They copy what their elders do in their day-to-day
life. It is therefore urgent and pertinent that parents should teach their children the right
things and good programs to watch.
That is why, we send our children to school. We do so because we believe that
they can learn something. But what does it really mean to learn? And what does it mean to
teach? It means to influence their environment, mostly to influence their internal structure
so that they can prepare for their future tasks. So that they can become good citizens and
good fathers and mothers for the next children; or else that they can through different
professions influence the life decisions. It is therefore important that children should be
shown good behaviour by their parents. They should be taught values of honesty and
truthfulness. Children expect to be taught the values of respecting others and not publicly
lying about them. They expect parents not to go public about issues that one is not sure
about and alleging things that one cannot substantiate with concrete evidence, values of
good judgements about situations and not being ruled by emotions of the moment, values
of respecting people even those who are grieving. Children do not expect to see their
parents abusing power and authority. In all these instances and circumstances, children
expect to see good example from their parents. By extension, parents ought to lead in the
choices that children make on the kind of videos and video clips that they watch on
television and other communication outlets. Children should be helped to grow up in a
good environment where they can develop good values.

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 3 Communication and development

In this section, we will focus on the human dimension of communication. We will

do this in two ways. We will look at the condition of possibility for anthropological
communication and the specificity of human communication, that is, when and why is
communication human? We want to establish the humanness of communication. We may
ask as follows; when is our communication human? When is our communication bestial?
When are we human in communicating? When is our communication humanly worthy?
The aim is that we should be able to overcome bestial communication and adopt human
communication. When can we say that our communication is individualistic and not
cosmic or unlimited? When does communication make us victims of homologation or
when does it help us to reach maximisation and depersonalisation? Should communication
just be the transmission of information only, or should it be transmission of knowledge?
How should one logically explain the fact that we communicate and or that we do not
communicate at times? On the other hand, indeed, are there times when we do not
communicate? How does one explain the phenomenology of communication?
In order to understand the anthropology of communication, it is important that we
should give three distinctions of the conceptions of the human person in three different
phases. The modern conception of man is generally individualistic. In this epoch, we see
man as being able to account for sociality and communality of communication. Man can
be seen here as being subjectivist and there is reduction of the other person as being a
subject, recipient, and pure receptor. He is seen as being materialistic and incapable of
spirituality, which is intrinsic dimension to human communication. He is also viewed as a
fragmented being who is incapable of understanding and sharing, the aspirations of human
communication. We see another trend with regard to the conception of man in the ancient
times when man there is emphasis on the man’s anthropological dualism of body and soul,
the idealistic conception of man where there is not much concentration on communication

18
but emphasis is placed on the subject’s expression. In the same period, man is viewed as an
empiricist in whom what matters is the end.
In the 70’s however, there was emphasis on the relational dimension of
communication, that is, importance of contact with others, exchange of messages, ideas,
emotions, intentions, plans, and technologies. In turn, in the 1990’s, with the transition
from analogue to digital and the formation of the virtual, there has been emphasis on
interaction, constructiveness, and communal dimension of communication, which always
involved subjectivity of both partners in the communicative process. It also involved the
other who could be physical or virtual. In the communication process, there is intrinsic
relationship between the fact, the experience, the indicative, and the ontological. There is
also that which is valuable, desirable, optative, and axiological and true. Then there is
importance of the action, whether it is good or bad behaviour.
A comprehensive and integrated anthropology appears to be the basis to understand
what is communication as it appears today in its complexity and differentiated multiplicity.
We can find in antiquity, some perspectives close to our current conceptions of
communication. These are found in the Aristotelian tradition in which the body and soul
are not two res, but they are two principles and two ontological foundations, in their own
right. The soul is the form of the body and man is inherently a social being.
In turn in the Jewish tradition, the human being is seen as flesh. He is fragile
humanity, mortal, living and capable of initiative, inner feeling and outward
expressiveness, able to praise God, but unlike the other living beings, man has the breath of
the divine spirit in him. Man is ruah. In Trinitarian theology, patristic and medieval
theology, God is seen as triune, as three persons in one divine nature, and essentially
relational, as creator and that we all participate in the Trinitarian communication and that
the world, the earth and the sky can give praise to God. The same applies to the recent
positive indications of the philosophy of the twentieth century. But more interesting, there
are the suggestions of the twentieth century with the modern subjectivist roll-over of
positions in which different philosophers bring into the foreground different positions like
intrinsic relatedness and relational continuity and discontinuity, namely, I, you, we and
world by M. Buber and Ebner. There are also different positions like the phenomenology
of inter-subjectivity and community personalism of E. Mounier, the otherness and the

19
inherent responsibility of E. Levinas and H. Jonas. We then have the worldliness,
temporality, being (in) time, (in) the world, (with) the other basically the existentialism of
Heidegger and his famous Being and Time. We also have the desire of transcendence of
K. Jaspers and the mystery of being as being beyond any problem of G. Marcel. Other
trends of thought include the idea of dialogicity in the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and
H.G. Gadamer, which highlights the ideas of textuality, historicity, the horizontality of
meaning, of the need to explain and understand, to define and analyse, and to inquire into
the need for foundation despite its historicity and limitations. We can add here the ideas
analytic philosophy and the ideas of L. Wittgenstein, the need of commitment,
participation, equity, solidarity and democratic humanism and in particular the Frankfurt
School and its follower J. Habermas. The period is also characterised by the popular
character, community, and liberation theories of P. Freire, Pedagogy and liberation
theology.
Furthermore, these multiple contributions, stimuli, and suggestions lead us to think
of human beings as being tangible and intangible, that is, as people capable of subjective
interiority and relationship with others and with the world, and living in the world in
historic communities of life. These communities are marked by culture, and they are open
to transcendence. How then can one justify these claims? What conditions or possibilities
does it need? We can however state that common sense attests that communication is a
fact, but there is still the burden of rational explanation. So one would say that
communication postulates reasonably that people are and can always be communicative
although, there remains the burden of rational explanation. The empirical and scientific
research shows that a human being is a language-user who is different from other living
beings. Human beings have culturally certain codes and have limits of expressiveness,
codificability, speakability, misunderstandings, exploitation, and the need for translation
and interpretation, which help him to connect with others and with himself. Moreover,
already at this scientific level, we can perceive human specificity as compared to other
living beings. Philosophical reflection highlights anthropological and ontological
assumptions, namely, corporeality and a world that is perceptible to the senses.
The human person uses words, signs and symbols, which prompted Cassirer to refer
to the persons as animal symbolicum. The person is capable of producing culture,

20
language, art, ideas, meanings and values in an articulated and differentiated continuum, as
a world having poles, and hemispheres, materiality and immateriality. Articulating the
same idea, Mounier and Marcel indicated that the human person is an incarnate spirit.
Human beings exist is space and time, in the virtual world of thoughts, ideas, impulses,
desires, aspirations, and intentions. They have the ability to reflexivity, intellectuality, of
transcendence, and spirituality in the broad sense of intellectual spirituality.
In this sense, what is important is not just the physicality, the senses and the
material signs. Of particular importance is also the consciousness and intellectual capacity,
spiritual interpretation in time to grasp the meaning, that is, the human universal or at least
having ability for intuition and not just emotional capability. Nevertheless, even if the
human person has enough spirit, intelligence, intuition, empathy, and required codes but
problems still abound with regard to dualism, materialism, and the empirical nature of the
human person still manifests itself. These limitations manifest themselves in some sense in
the way the human person communicates linguistically.
We should note here about the importance of the technical means, which only filter,
intensify, fix and superimpose various external senses. This shows the specific role and
often the mutual relationship (often dialectical) with the so-called internal senses from
memory, intuition and insight. However, information as well as felt and perceived is to be
understood and this requires a consciousness that is capable of reflection and criticism. It
also requires consciousness that is able to differentiate, to frame, to know the universal
connection or to be in opposition or distinction, differentiation, otherness and particular,
individual and universal, and information that is based on a culture. We need information
that is meant for social heritage and personal ideas, that helps in formation of values,
behaviour patterns, and assists human in formation of ethical imperatives.
In this sense, the mind itself comes to be in globed in what we say and we say it
with less and precise words but in a more comprehensive way, and in a way that reflects
our spirit, our historical, conscious and reflective existence. We are able to be present to
ourselves and we can open up to something else. The tradition of mainly E. Mounier
generally emphasizes modern consciousness and generally has recourse to the concept of
person because it goes beyond the merely cognitive or goes beyond linguisticism. It is a
tradition that highlights global subjectivity, relationality and the dynamism of the human

21
being and their existence. There is need to capture the specificity, but also the continuity
of interaction and reciprocity between sensory perception and conceptualization,
understanding, intellectual reflection and linguistic and behavioural expression. We should
take into consideration the fact that interaction is a two-way process, between signs,
feelings, intelligence, intuition, spirituality, emotion or emotions, needs, and desires, which
are always dynamic and relational. These are also constitutive dimensions of
communications.
Other important factors in the philosophy of communication are the essential
features, which contemporary anthropology highlights. We have individual differences,
differences in gender between man and woman, differences in social status, roles, age of
life and cultural belonging. The temporal and historical framework of human materiality
and spirituality highlights existence, that is, that the human being is a being out there, in
whom time and space are humanized, a being that produces culture, and a being that brings
about buildings. That is why we can talk about the humanity of technology and products.
Moreover, the historical constructiveness of communication indicates that personal and
community life are also a result, a fruit, and a product of communication. Here we see the
importance of traditions, and education as common heritage, as stimulus, and as facilitation
towards the social experience, as source of information in meaning and interpretation of
models, in the cultivation of the communicative individual, or towards formation of the
group. It is as such a collective capacity, wealth, inertial force, resource as well as an
impediment towards the formation of the individual.
However, we cannot put in brackets an organization, as much as it is objectionable,
the reforming and modifying capacity on social community. It is also the source at least at
the minimum of dialectical and controversial shared values. One cannot run away from the
communal dimension of life, to the search and building of mutual responsibility and
participation. We are all given the presupposition and possibility of a communicating
community where there is equity, participation, dialogue, social commitment to the
protection of all, promotion, and provision of human rights for everyone. Nevertheless, we
need to emphasise as well, the need for the exercise and access of training, education
towards communication, as well as the voler communicare and the commitment to the

22
qualification or requalification of human communication. None of us is born educated or
fully educated, so says a Roman proverb.
From the above we can draw two fundamental corollaries, namely to the question:
what kind of person is required for human communication? We can say that the answer to
this question corresponds to the answer that is in line with the anthropological vision,
which is at the base of the following statements: that we need that humanity as a set and
plurality of beings, in the world, with others in history, and with cultural codes. The codes
ought to mediate the senses, the signs, the technical means, the body, the world, and
history as a material platform of human communication.
We also need that humanity which is a set and plurality of capable persons and
spirits that reflects, out of consciousness, that takes a stand on what they live for and for
what happens. Humanity that has a spirituality and capacity for intellectual abstraction.
With this human communication, one will be able to seize the universal from the
particular, the material in the empirical, and one will also be able to discern concepts from
the sensible experience. One ought to seize and feel intellectually and/or empathically the
value, meaning and significance of things, people and events. This has to be done
according to different forms of being and existence, according to different individuals,
gender differences and different ages in historic communities of life and culture, and with a
development perspective of life and personalized human growth, which appeals to
commitment and dedication, care and human development and custom worlds.
To the question: what is the relationship between transmission, information, and
communication? We can say that communication requires transmission of information and
knowledge but that this communication is not limited to research shows, constructive
engagement, creativity, personal expression, conscience, understanding and exchange of
views of the world and of life, meanings and values, but that it also refers to a sense of
partnership and responsible commitment. As a conclusion to this section, we can
emphasize the importance of participatory communication. As already mentioned, the
anthropological perspective opens up to the ethical commitment, to practical and political
society in which there is an organized social existence, in which there should be effective
dialogue, exchange, equity, social justice, and the search for the common good on the basis
of human common dignity. There is need for conditions of a society of communication

23
according to Habermas and Apel. There is also need for political participation and social
commitment to communication that aids human development and sustainable development
of all at all levels. This in a way is called participatory communication. It is only on this
condition that we can say that the human person is not necessarily intended for
incommunicableness and he is not called to the failure, collapse and babel of
communication. Humans are not Molock but they are expressive individuals, they are in
the process of being realized, they are responsible, distinct, and capable of hermeneutics
and critical thinking. There is need that the quality of communication should promote
these values with commitment and vigilance.
In the last analysis of this chapter, we would like to clarify a few terms and basic
concepts. To be human is not just a thing among things. It is not just an object, a
commodity to be sold, alienated and commoditized. Human beings are alive like grass and
plants, and animals. However, unlike these, man is intelligent and free. Man is body and
spirit, a result of nature and culture, manufacturer of self, of history, of civilization.
Human beings are given. They are a gift, a task, and a commitment, in contrast to
interdependence, solidarity, and care. A human person has his or her own name, each one
is unrepeatable subject, and each one is a person whose existence is in the world, in time, is
in history, in society but is also in transcendence.
Humans are an unresolved mystery that is susceptible to empirical and scientific
studies, they are susceptible to confrontation of their existential interrogations and they can
never be fully defined or fully known but instead they are always exteriorly understandable
and detectable to themselves and to others. The idea of person on the other hand, indicates
that the human being is party and a member of the human species, of the society, of the
nation, church, and humanity. The human person is an individual and has his own
individuality. The human being is an entity with his or her inner life, spirituality, and
transcendence, self-transcendence, and social transcendence, temporal, historical and
religious values. The human person has his own personality, which in many ways is
unrepeatable. They are subjects that are relational with other beings and with the world.
They relate with and through the work that they undertake and they relate with others
through inter-subjectivity, in the society, in the community and they do so through their
bodies, through language, and commitment with God through religion. Faith is the end not

24
only the means. As such, the human being has specific aspects that place him over other
living beings, has universal aspects of humanness and the human person has dignity.
Humans have a value, excellence, integrity and their human rights, free will and free
choices have to be respected.
In this sense, the idea of humanness indicates the universal aspects of the person
and these are the body, rationality, freedom, subjectivity, historicity, inter-relationality,
communal dimension, spirituality, and transcendence. Humanness as a value indicates that
which gives meaning to life, apart from all else. We can distinguish procedural values of
respect, tolerance, fairness, transparency, autonomy, solidarity, constructiveness, and hope.
The formal values are rationality, truth, freedom, beauty, and love. We also have the
values of content, which are life, person, justice, peace, development, environment, health,
culture, and education. To be human is a right. Humanness is the foundation of
subjectivity, legitimacy, and social responsibility. Social responsibility involves being
alive, to be a citizen, a worker, to have children for those who are called to do so and not
for those who are not called to have children like priests and sisters, to grow old, to receive
help in sickness, to receive help as disabled, and to be helped as a migrant.
If we want to be treated in a human manner, it is only necessary that we too should
treat others in a human manner. That is why, the right way to act and to live is to follow
the golden rule, which states; do to others what you would want them to do to you. Never
do to others what you would not want it to be done to you. Additionally, the Christian is
guided by the commandment of love of God and love of neighbour. That is the ability to
love oneself and to love one’s neighbour. That is why Jesus said; love one another as I
have loved you. The same principle finds itself exemplified in the work of Emmanuel
Kant when he stated; when you act, make sure that the maxim of your action agrees with
the universal norm. That is to say that when one acts, they must constantly refer to what
the universal laws, and the universal international declarations or charters stipulate. The
same has been re-coined by Rosmini who stated that one ought to adjust their love towards
the being of every reality while the social professional conduct stipulates that one ought to
follow the principles and rules of the code of ethics.
All this is important for philosophical and religious reasons. It is a right and duty to
act in the right manner. We have for example democratic faith in the content and

25
perspectives that are contained in the International declarations of the rights of man and
citizens although they are sometimes limited by the fact that they reflect the western
historical and cultural setting, and we treat them at times like secular bibles. The problem
with most of the international charters and declarations is that they originate and emanate
from a context that is at times exclusively American or European predominantly and this
has been the biggest problem that continents in Asia, Latin America, India and some
countries like Russia are opposing. The key issue is, how can we have international
declarations that arise only from the Western and American countries? To put the question
in a more positive way; what can we do so that the international declarations and charters
represent and equally address the cultural and historical problems of Africa?
For example, the issue of dictators in Africa is not only an issue that can be
resolved by mass arrest of all past dictators. Fine. We can lock them up but there will
arise other dictators. This is an issue that emanates from the way governance is conceived
and practised from the lowest levels of most of the African societies where the chief is
almost an untouchable figure. No one questions the chief’s decisions. No one usually
appeals a chief’s decision whether taken justly or unfairly. The more one rises on the
ladder of leadership, the more they practise dictatorship. The more dictatorial one is, the
more they are considered to embody leadership qualities. That is why most of the people
in leadership positions in African societies are terrible dictators. That is why some of the
Generals that have ended up being terrible dictators in Africa rose through the ranks
because of such qualities and attributes in part.
Now the international community addresses this problem by locking up such
dictators in jail but as you would appreciate this calls for education in leadership,
principles of proper freedom, democratic values, the importance of tolerance, accepting
alternative views, building societies that are open to critique and checks and balances.
This is leadership formation. As such, given a chance, we would priotise on funding such
education and formation at a basic level in the primary school all through college so that
those who graduate are properly trained and equipped in open leadership rather than
dictatorial tendencies. This is a clear example where the solution is not juridical but
educational. This is what we mean that agreements at the international level should factor
in the views of the Africa people, the Asian people, and the Indian people, the Latin

26
American people and obviously America and Europe, among other groups of people.
International declarations that arise from such concerted efforts and brainstorming will be
representative of the views and aspirations of at least a significant number of people but
such charters should never be monopolized by America and Europe. While the intention of
helping Africa, Latin America and other continents may be good to address their problems
at the international level but such discussions should really be genuine and inclusive.
By extension, the same applies to the issue of lesbianism and gayism in Africa.
Some people think Africans are not tolerance because most of them look at gayism,
homosexuality and lesbianism as a taboo and indeed in most of the villages one rarely
comes across this phenomenon. The basis of this is that in the African societies, most of
the people especially in the villages are brought up in communities. The community leader
is the chief and the custodian of the cultural traditions and heritage. The elders are the
people who pass on the cultural values to the children usually as the gather at night seated
around fire warming up themselves or as they sit at night under the light of the moon. The
elders tell stories that embody the cultural values of the past, passed on through successive
generations and generations. The young people are initiated into this thinking pattern.
This is the case because with rampant poverty levels, people live together closely
and are knit together as one unit so that what affects one, affects the other. In such a setup,
no one is expected to behave differently, otherwise the whole community either ostracises
them or punishes such an individual. This is important to preserve their cultural unity and
identity. That is why, one cannot divert from the expected ways of behaving for fear of
being left alone to face a future that is certain. Now, when the elders teach the youngsters
the expected ways of behaving, everyone is expected to follow suit. No body rises up
against the community. To rise against the community is to dig your own grave, because
one cannot survive without the community from which they come from. The elders teach
the children who to marry, when to marry, the roles in the family, the expectations of the
society from the family and the structure of the family. Any family structure must agree
with what the community stipulates. To act against this, is to stand-alone and no one
survives alone in the African context. Now when the West judges Africans on the issue of
homosexuality, lesbianism and gayism, they look at the manifestations and look at the
surface but the issue is much deeper. It is a community, cultural, traditional and survival

27
issue. In addition, philosophers have taught us over the centuries that no one lives in a
vacuum but we live in a cultural and traditional setting. To invite someone into practices
that work or seem to be against this cultural and traditional setting is invite the person to
break their personality that they have built over years and years. The question is; let us
suppose they manage to break off from their cultural and traditional setting; what then do
they become? Which structures in the community are going to support them? Where do
they live? Which cultural and traditional values will become the bedrock of their
personality? Which community will pass on these values to them? How much time do
they have to internalise and build a personality based on these new values?
In Africa, marriages are associated with fecundity. Married couples have children.
People grow up thinking about getting married and having their own children. This is one
of the objectives, which bind a man and a woman together. Now, for a child brought up in
such a context where people associate marriage with children; how are they helped to
reconcile gay relationships that cannot be associated with fecundity? Will it be a purely
sexual relationship or to put it bluntly, is it just sex for the sake of sex? Is it just sex for the
sake of satisfying oneself and then that is all? What will bind such a relationship together?
Into which community does such marriage belong? Alternatively, much deeper, which
parents will welcome home their son who engages in such a marriage? Which village
community, will celebrate at this wedding? These are deep, serious and fundamental
questions. All this, can help us understand that we are not supposed to make rush
judgments. International decisions and charters must listen to all people across the board;
otherwise, the decisions that will be made will remain at the shelf. Such decisions will
never be implemented. Furthermore, in order to live a good life it is necessary that one
should have the necessary conditions of life and we need a communicating community
according to Habermas and Apel. The communicating community does not degrade, does
not innocently torture, does not lie but promotes tolerance, listening, dialogue,
transparency, reasonableness, effectiveness, reciprocity, a sense of knowing one’s limits,
respect for persons, freedom, social justice , truth and development, among other attributes.
We now move on to look at another important aspect about the contribution of
psychoanalysis and Christianity to full communication. The conscious and the
unconscious, the impulse and intended intentionality are in continuity and interaction, but

28
this is done for the benefit of the self and of his being with others. According to the
integral soteriological Christian prospect, Christ descended into hell, which is the world of
the very deep impulses, which is archaic, and there he saved us. He saved the whole man,
not only the soul or the spirit. Therefore, it is very Christian to give expression to our own
and other people’s impulses, desires, and feelings.
According to Leonardo, we have to understand that humanity of the child and of the
adult is not only to reach the full measure of man as stipulated by Leonardo. Nevertheless,
in the words of Western humanism, humanity is projected towards the fullness of the
humanity of the risen Christ (Ephesians 4, 13). We are not only persons, not only are we
made in the image and likeness of God, but through the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus
we are sons in the Son and we live in a very special relationship with God the Father, in the
Spirit. The world and time are projected towards new heavens and new earth in which
justice and truth dwell permanently.
History is included under the history of salvation and good acts are not the
consequence of good obedience to a categorical imperative or obedience to duty for duty’s
sake. Obedience is not even the consequence by itself of an alliance like the people of the
Old Testament, but it is a result of the relationship of Sonship that is why, one can say, I
act well; I love you, because I have been loved, because all of us are sons in the Son of
God. We need something that is more than the Gospels. We need something that can be
compared to our ways of seeing and acting. This indicates that we are integral human
beings, who live not by bread alone but we live by the power of God. We are invited to go
beyond the human measures. For example, if one gives a slap, one ought to turn and give
the other side. We are called to emulate the Father who lets the sun and rain, fall on good
and bad alike. We are called to go beyond the human prospective or beyond human
eschatological hopes. This is the case because already now, we are the children of God,
but time will come when we will face God, face to face. We will see him as he is.

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 4 The limits of communication

Direct experience makes us touch with our hands the fundamental ambivalence, the
limits, but also the other side of communication. Human existence is not everything. It is
just only communication. There is in this world the incommunicable. There is
incommunicability between people, groups, generations, and peoples. It is an inescapable
experience. Despite the technical progress and access to the means of social
communication but there is still a lot of misrepresentations, distortions, inability, fixations,
artificiality, personal and community difficulties.
There have been profound aspirations of communication that are incapable of being
unfulfilled by the possibilities of social communication, today. There are difficulties with
regard to the development of personal skills like the failure for one to express themselves
and communicate with others. There is the feeling of consciousness and intuition,
intimacy, ulteriority and otherness of the volume that we want to communicate,
individually and communally. At times, there is so much that we want to communicate to
an extent that we feel limited on how we could express it or even how we could say it.
These experiences highlight the anthropological and ethical limits of
communication. They also express the ontological and existential experiences of man,
namely, the radical ambivalence of every being and of every action and human operation.
Indeed these experiences open to us the metaphysical question, namely, why am I a being
rather than nothing? In the end, it is the question of the ultimate meaning of
communication, either as given, as a task and as a dedication.
On the other hand, it is an index of opening oneself towards the other, to the infinite
otherness of communication. That is why; St. Thomas Aquinas helps in this when he
wrote about virtutes obedientiales, which is the opening of human nature to his
transcendent relation with God. We will now outline five possible limits of
communication. We have subjective communication, which could be personal, cultural
and it refers to the technical element of communication, which includes producers or users
of communications. We can also speak about codification, which is historical and is

30
always within the limits of alphabet. There are different types of codes and each has its
advantages and disadvantages. One is more suitable for certain things and another for the
other. We can also here refer to the issue of the importance of the medium, which could be
physical, representative and technical and then there is the noise, redundancy and the eco
effect of the medium. Additionally, we can talk about the importance of cultural reference,
which is marked by time and space and then the importance between those who are
communicating. We will here indicate 5 points, which may help someone to go beyond
communication, namely, the interiority of the subjects of communication, who may not be
completely objectified or framed. Then there is the impulsive and unconscious world,
which is difficult to codify, express or communicate. All this raise the problem and
question of the difference between the ideal and the real, between intuition,
conceptualization and linguistic expression. We can emphasize again the transcendence
beyond the present, the ulteriority, and the future that is not predictable and programmable.
We also have the limit of the mystery of being, of life, and the mystery of God. God is in
many ways ineffable and indescribable because he goes beyond any mere
conceptualisation.
To mediate these two positions, we have highlighted 10 opportunities where and
with which the confines of communication may be understood, and these are; rhetoric,
which shows up, persuades, motivates, and argues beyond the visual, the sensible, the
empirical, the logical and the rational. Then we have the experiential and understandable
language, which is analogical, empathetic and sympathetic. Another opportunity is the
allusive and aesthetic languages like poetry, myth, metaphor, and parable and fairy tales.
We also have the narrative that allows one to expose the particular and the
autobiographical. The subliminal communication is another opportunity and then
contemplation is yet another opportunity. Communication is also experienced in the
expressions of the ritual and evocative, celebrative, existential and vital and then in
invocation and prayer that breaks the walls of the communal thoughts by elevating the
spirit of God. Another opportunity is that of silence and distance, invocation and then
opening of oneself towards the beyond. Before, during and after each communication and
non-communication process, there is silence, and listening.

31
 This then leads us to another important question; should we say that we are moving
towards the metaphysics of communication? The experience of communication and
education opens us up to answer and ask a radical question par excellence, the
metaphysical question, which according to Heidegger, is why am I a being rather than
nothing? In the end, this leads us to the question of the ultimate meaning of
communication and education as a duty, as a dedication, a commitment, and the task
before us to care and protect the dignity of the human person.
This then leads us to another important aspect about the importance of
communication technologies, old and new, which are not just tools. Communication
strategies are not just procedures. They convey information and messages and propose
closely related ideals and ways of life judged to be humanly interesting. They induce
relationships and interactions. That is why these technologies are closely connected with
the general term globalization.
Globalization impacts not only on the structures and on processes of production and
consumption, but also on culture and relational life at all levels, making the concrete image
of the global village concept. With a series of novelty and the instance of change, and
innovation, we can say that globalization induces the system of the world, the way of life
and the life of the individual. It also influences the content of subjective values, subjective
attitudes, frameworks of subjective value, the patterns of behaviour in general and
interactive ones in particular. At the same time, globalisation causes tensions between the
old and the new, between established ways of life and new social practices, generating a
complex existential generalized climate, which is not without repercussions on educational
practices. From the point of view of the relationship and educative communication, it
seems highly relevant to look at the following four important hubs.
The growing ideals and values of subjectivism whereby the self is seen as the centre
of everything and as the rule of truth and value, which can lead to exchange the truth with
what one thinks, and the good with what one likes. The objectivity of reality and truth, as
well as the transcendence of the other, the world, and God, are put in decidedly second
order or completely obscured. The end, the common good, the shared values but also the
respect of time and things, and a sense of proportion of the technical, are unlikely to be put
into account. The other is likely to be reduced to complement the ego. The other is

32
reduced to self-expression, to the destination of one’s action, to the subject of one’s own
intentions. The self becomes limitless, almost a religion of self, which is likely to fall into
the deadly disease of narcissism of a world without me.
The current experiences and recent studies of sciences of communication push
educational communication to be thought of and implemented in a broad anthropological
perspective. This the perspective that humanity is co-essentially, being with others in the
world, in the historic communities of life, marked by culture and by a wide
interdependence and marked by relational abilities, at both individual and collective levels.
From this rises the need for the virtuous, of respect, dialogue, rights, commitment to
fairness and development that is solid and historically sustainable.
More specifically, the current developments of communication push us almost
naturally to take shape as humanity and to live together in a plurality of persons and
entities. It also helps us to be able to be not only consumers but hermeneuticians and
producers of culture, language, art, ideas, meanings and values.
There arise, then, in a new way and with overriding urgency, the ethical question
about communication and communication technologies. It arises as a socio-political
commitment for qualification or requalification of human communication not only because
it concerns itself with the use of technology but also of the content, values, ideas that
qualify it or alienate it with the lives of the people. In this sense, then the importance of
adequate communication training becomes clear.
Another area is that of language which has its own limits and this is true of all valid
forms of language be it written, verbal, iconic, and gestural. We cannot put words together
in any way we like and say that we are still talking about a language. The limit is that we
have to use particular words in order to express an idea and that these words ought to be
arranged in a particular way and in a particular manner. We have here the problem of
semantics as well. But not even words put together in a pure way according to grammar is
enough to engage in language. If one greets me with ‘Good morning’ and I reply ‘I do
not,’ I have not given an understandable answer, although it has not violated any rules of
grammar. My answer was a violation of rules because it does not make sense even if it is
grammatically correct.

33
 To say that the language has limitations, therefore, is another way of saying that
language is a rule-governed behaviour, which is defined and shared according to some
rules that become part of the culture. If we do not apply the rules, then what happens is that
we end up not having a language and without language, we may not have communication
and without communication, social life would be hugely difficult and the result is that there
would be chaos in the society. Therefore, in front of language, our freedom is equal
because we all have to comply with the established rules. One who freely chooses to
communicate, is not free to use a combination of words that does not make sense. To
communicate is to abide by the rule of grammar.
Language has limitations because its rules are conventional. They are agreements
to use words in certain circumstances, and purposes. We limit words to particular and
certain definitions. For example, please is the answer to give when you want to ask for
something, but it is limited in some sense to this context and you cannot give the same
answer when you want for example, to ask what time it is. Every part of our language has
similar restrictions.
The rules of our language are not logically necessary, nor is there a logical
necessity for the limits that we meet. We could very well think of language rules as being
different from those we have. In fact, though, it is hard to imagine similar alternatives, we
are so addicted (accustomed) to live and speak as we do, that it would take an imagination
of science fiction to devise other ways in which language might work. In order to do this,
there would be need to devise, think, create, invent, and imagine ways in which we could
live.

34
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