Communication: a human condition or impossibility?

Abstract

Nietzsche considers communication a human condition; Deleuze and Guattari, on the other hand, argue that communication among humans is not possible. This article examines this impasse, seeking to demonstrate that the two possibilities make sense, without implying any contradiction. To this end, a conceptual discussion is made of the rationale of the aforementioned authors, and of how a Brazilian text on communication theories deals with this problem. Lastly, the paper shows that Nietzsche’s argument about the nature of human communication complements the one Deleuze and Guattari propose to demonstrate the inability of humans to communicate, and that although these arguments appear to be contradictory, it is only due to different conceptual constructions of the term “communication.”