Language and value: the philosophy of language in the post-Operaist critique of contemporary capitalism

Abstract

This paper offers a discussion of the role played by the philosophy of language in the post-Operaist critique of contemporary capitalism, focussing specifically on the relation between language and questions of labour and value. It argues that the post-Operaist philosophy of language is a philosophy of immaterial labour which enables us to make new diagnoses concerning the contradictions and antagonisms of late, cognitive, financialized capitalism. The first part of the article broadly outlines post-Operaist thinking about language in the context of contemporary Italian philosophy of language. In this part, the argument is made for a shift from using the term ‘philosophy of language’ to the notion of a ‘philosophy of the linguistic faculty’. Part two is devoted to the main aspects of the post-Operaist critique of contemporary capitalism. The third presents an analysis of this post-Operaist philosophy of the linguistic faculty as a philosophy of living, immaterial labour, by examining the post-Operaist view of language within the wider context of Marxist theory, stressing the political character of the post-Operaist approach.