Hermeneutics and language: it is impossible to think without words

Abstract

The article attempts to trace the beginnings of the discussions about the nascent philosophy of language in nineteenth-century Germany from the increasingly widespread understanding that it is impossible to think without words. In other, more radical words, that reason is the same as language. This gave rise to some basic perspectives that complemented and opposed each other in understanding what language is. Is it a distancing from the real and objective world because it reduces things to concepts and signs? Or is it the uniquely human quality of creating a world parallel to the natural world, a world of freedom and reason? The problems with these two conceptions are not insignificant. Nevertheless, some authors (such as F. Schlegel and F. Schleiermacher) have proposed an original response to the paradoxes in which language entangles us. Ultimately, it is impossible to think outside language. So, we have to find a way through it and from it.

Keywords
reason; language; hermeneutics; classical German philosophy; philosophy of language