Title: The Linguistic Turn as a Political Act: Another Look at the Thoughts of Roque Ferriols
Abstract: This paper explores what I would call as the "linguistic turn" of Roque Ferriols, a prominent Filipino philosophy luminary.Following Paulo Freire's notion of the non-neutrality of education, I will argue that Ferriols' linguistic turn can also be read as a political act.Even if he does not have a sustained analysis of the politics of language, there are interspersed texts showing that he is deliberately and consciously involved in the process of critique and problematization of colonial discourse and elitist mentality.Thus, when he is alternatively seen as a participant in a wider discourse of linguistic politics, the readers of Ferriols become more aware of the liberating motive and potential behind his choice of Filipino for philosophizing and for teaching philosophy.