The onto–politics of speech: a meta–ethical theory of transformation

This essay offers a sociological reinterpretation of the overlooked philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973), showing how his thought exposes the epistemological limits of contemporary social theory. By foregrounding speech as a lived, everyday practice, it advances an onto-political analysis of social life situated along temporal and spatial axes. Building toward what he calls the metanomics of society, Rosenstock-Huessy’s notion of ‘the people as first principle’ calls for a social epistemology attuned to how individuals generate, circulate, and contest meaning. To enact a new way of thinking, Rosenstock-Huessy foregrounds four grammatical moods – ‘imperative, indicative, subjunctive, and optative’ – each articulating a distinct mode of social existence. This framework invites a rethinking of social epistemology through the practice of speech-thinking. An onto-politics of speech thus provides a practical analytic for understanding how social worlds are continually transformed. In advancing this transformative vision of epistemology, the essay develops a meta-ethical practice attentive to how speech, time, and history are continually made and remade. It calls for a reconsideration of how societies endure, fracture, and renew themselves, situating these processes at the convergence of unity, social breakdown, and the dynamics of war and peace.