Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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Wilhelm von Humboldt on Language - Dictionary of Arguments
Gadamer I 442 Language/Humboldt/Gadamer: Modern thinking about language since Herder and Humboldt (...) wants to study how the naturalness of human language - an insight laboriously wrested from rationalism and orthodoxy - unfolds in the breadth of experience of the diversity of human language construction. In recognizing an organism in every language, it seeks to study, in comparative reflection, the fullness of the means which the human spirit has used to exercise its capacity for language. Gadamer I 443 The normative interest under which [Humboldt] compares the language structure of human languages does not (...) cancel out (...) the recognition of individuality, and that means the relative perfection of each individual. It is well known that Gadamer I 444 Humboldt learned to understand each language as a separate view of the world by examining the inner form in which the primordial human process of language formation differentiates itself. Behind this thesis is not only the idealistic philosophy, which emphasizes the subject's part in grasping the world, but also the metaphysics of individuality first developed by Leibniz. Cf. >Sapir-Whorf thesis, >Relativism, >Cultural relativism. Gadamer I 445 Foreign Languages/Humboldt: (...) Humboldt once said that learning a foreign language must be the acquisition of a new point of view in the previous world view, and continues: "Just because one always, more or less, transfers one's own world view, yes, one's own language view, into a foreign language, the success is not felt purely and completely"(1). >Language Acquisition. Gadamer: What is claimed here to be a limitation and a shortcoming (and rightly so from the standpoint of the linguist who has his or her own path of knowledge in mind), is in fact the fullness of hermeneutic experience. Form/Hermeneutics/Gadamer: Linguistic form and traditional content cannot be separated in hermeneutic experience. Culture/World View/Foreign Languages/Humboldt: No matter how much you put yourself in a foreign state of mind, you do not forget your own world view, yes, your own language view. Rather, the other world that confronts us there is not only a foreign one, insofar as it is a relationally different one. It has not only its own truth in itself, but also its own truth for us. Gadamer I 446 [Humboldt] recognized the living execution of speech, the linguistic energeia as the essence of language, and thus broke the dogmatism of the grammarians. From the concept of force, which guides all his thinking about language, he has in particular also put into perspective the question of the origin of language, which was particularly burdened by theological considerations. Origin of language/Humboldt: [Humboldt] rightly emphasizes that language is human from its very beginning(2). World/Gadamer: For mankind the world as a I 447 world is there, as it has no other existence for any living thing in the world. But this existence of the world is linguistically written. This is the actual core of the sentence that Humboldt expresses with a completely different intention, that languages are world views(1). What Humboldt is trying to say with this is that language asserts a kind of independent existence vis-à-vis the individual who belongs to a linguistic community and, as he or she grows into it, simultaneously introduces him or her to a certain world relationship and world behaviour. More important, however, is what this statement is based on: that language, for its part, does not claim an independent existence in relation to the world that is expressed in it. Not only is the world only world, as far as it is expressed - language has its actual existence only in the fact that the world is represented in it. The original humanity of language thus means at the same time the original linguistic nature of the human "being-in the-world". 1. W. von Humboldt, „Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus ..“ (zuerst gedruckt 1836),§9. 2. Ebenda, S. 60_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Humboldt, W. von Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-28