Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language".
Lecture 6: Can Truth be Spoken?
In what sense can we legitimately think about silence as a mode of knowing? We need to be cautious about using such a notion as an excuse for giving up the challenges of truthful speech.
But it is true that, if what is ultimately most important is to be attuned to the reality that we invite to 'inhabit' us, silence may be the most appropriate means of representation.
The challenge is to frame silence in order to render it meaningful; that is, as more than an absence of sound or concept. And to identify such deliberate and 'strategic' silence - in meditation, in music, but also in aspects of our habitual discourse - is to raise the question of how silence 'refers' and so puts all we say in a new, and questioning, light.
Recorded on 14 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.