Paul Klee and the writing of life

Life has long been identified as a matter of movement; more precisely, life is recognized as that which has the source of movement in itself. Already we find Aristotle describing the "movement of life" (Kivnoiotov βiov) as one way of characterizing that which philosophy needs to understand2 In this task of thinking life, philosophers have long and almost universally subscribed to the view that the most appropriate response to this task-our best means of giving voice and expression to life - is found in language. Philosophy lives in, and is oriented by, the yoyoc, by the word. Hegel gives expression to this philosophical commitment to the word in blunt and unhesitating form when he says, "what is called the unutterable is nothing other than the untrue." In other words, all that remains apart from language lacks the dignity of truth and so loses the right to make a claim upon thinking.