Niesłychany Obcy
Unheard-of Stranger

Summary/Abstract: The Greek word xenos means, among others, ‘stranger’ and ‘unheard-of.’ What role does hearing/listening play in an encounter with a Stranger? For centuries, the reflection on human cognitive capabilities has been continued within the framework provided, on the one hand, by the Greek metaphor of the light and, on the other, by the biblical metaphors of the ‘voice’ and cognition tantamount to listening. The present essay attempts to juxtapose these two traditions and highlight the tension between them. The voice of the daimonion, the encounter of the face of Another, Orpheus, who, having turned to see Eurydice, loses her, and the voice of the girl from a poem by Bolesław Leśmian provide the points of reference for the author in his pursuit of a conceptual grasp of the unheard-of Stranger: of the Stranger conceived as Unheard-of.

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