Moments of reticence in the analects and wittgenstein

Abstract

For perhaps obvious reasons, reticence is not likely to recommend itself as a category with which to perform cross-cultural studies in philosophy. Again, to risk stating the obvious, the theme of reticence would in this context concern what philosophical arguments and texts leave unsaid as well as explicitly advise an audience to leave unsaid. By fixing our attention to gaps, silences, and times where the subject is changed as well as when any of the advice above is explicitly recommended (moments of reticence), new insights on how philosophical clarification and ethical cultivation are performed will come into view.