Beyond the Babylonian Trauma: Theories of Language and Modern Culture in the German-Jewish Context

by Gerald Hartung

Overview

Hartung works out both the linguistic and philosophy of language setting as well as socio-political and cultural implications of the radical critique of language developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by philosophers as diverse as Steinthal, Cohen, Simmel or Cassirer. He argues that the theories pleaded for a plurality of linguistic and cultural forms as well as for a new logic beyond the traditional nature/culture partition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110602715
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	09/24/2018
Series:	New Studies in the History and Historiography of Philosophy , #5
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	209
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gerald Hartung, University of Wuppertal.

Table of Contents

0 Introduction - The Event of Language 1

1 Of Language as an 'Event' - Heymann Steinthal 9

1.1 Steinthal's Mediation between Hegel and Humboldt 10

1.2 Philosophy of Language and Linguistics 14

Excursus on the Organism of Language 18

1.3 Anthropology and Linguistics 24

1.4 Language as Generation in the Spirit 27

2 The Origin of Language from 'Almost Nothing' - Lazarus Geiger 29

2.1 Darwin and Linguistics 31

2.2 The Origin of Languages in the Light of Darwin's Theory 33

2.3 Concerning the Difference between Anthropology and Linguistics 35

2.4 On the Development of Language from 'almost nothing' 38

2.5 Linguistic Development and Linguistic Diversity 43

3 The 'Spirit of Language' - Moritz Lazarus 46

3.1 On Language 46

3.2 On Cultural Development or the Influence of Language on Spirit 52

3.3 The Understanding in Language or Conversation 60

3.4 The Project of a Natural History of Conversation 64

4 'The Peace of Humour' - Hermann Cohen 69

4.1 The World-history of the Spirit and the Peace of Humour 70

4.2 Moritz Lazarus' Psychology of Humour 77

4.3 On the Nature of Human Beings and the Human Beings in Nature 81

A Digression on Laughter 87

4.4 Messianism and the Ideal of Peace in Cohen 96

5 On Tact as Form of Sociability 99

5.1 A Genealogy of Tact in Kant and Herbart 100

5.2 Moritz Lazarus on the Counter-sense of Tact 104

5.3 Georg Simmel on Tact and Sociability 109

5.4 Helmuth Plessner on the "Wisdom of Tact" 113

6 At the Limits of the 'Critique of Language' - Fritz Mauthner 116

6.1 Mauthner's Contributions to the Critique of Language (1901-2) 118

Excursus on the History of the Categories 120

6.2 The Origination and Development of Language 124

6.3 History of Language and Reason 128

6.4 The Actuality of Language 133

6.5 Suicide through the Critique of Language - A Crossing of the Boundary 140

6.6 Mauthner's Concept of the Critique of Language in the Mirror of His Critics 146

7 From the Critique of Language to a 'Critique of Culture' - Ernst Cassirer 153

7.1 Connection to the Humboldt Tradition - on the Theory of Language 153

7.2 Naturalism versus Humanism - the Transition to the Philosophy of Culture 158

7.3 Aporiai of the Theory of Language and Culture 160

7.4 From the Theory of Language to Anthropology 167

8 Conclusion - Language, Culture and Individuality 171

Bibliography 186

Index 200