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Speculative and language

Speculative conception of thought: Hegel on language

Goran Vranešević
p. 87-108

Abstract

The article deals with Hegel’s distinctive conceptualization of language, which takes a speculative form. Not only does language play a crucial role in understanding Hegel’s speculative philosophy, but it also provides a novel way of understanding the inner mechanics of thought formation and explication. While language does fulfil a common communicative purpose for Hegel, this is but of minor importance; Hegel rather emphasized the everyday use of language in all its speculative splendour. There is namely an ambiguity present in some of the most ordinary words, which often carry not just different meanings but opposite ones. This is not an error or imprecision in need of correction, but a constitutive feature of the speculative spirit of language. Moreover, this notable characteristic is closely linked to Hegel's insight that thoughts are first and foremost expressed through the medium of language.

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Note della redazione

The article was prepared as part of the project Hegel's Political Metaphysics (J6-2590) at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana and funded by the Slovenian Research Agency.

Testo integrale

1. Introduction

  • 1 For a general overview, see Forster 2011; O’Neill 2006; McCumber 1993; Cook 1973; Bodammer 1969.
  • 2 Forster 2011: 148-149. In this respect, the influence of Herder 1772 on his philosophy is significa (...)
  • 3 Hegel 1986a: 234.

1The article will endeavour to show how for Hegel the inner structure of language and thought rely on a shared principle. While there are already many studies on the importance of language in Hegel’s philosophy1, we will focus on how Hegel articulated said distinct relation through what is most speculative in ordinary language, namely the ability to preserve the oneness of difference in a single word. Having words in German such as Aufhebung, charged with speculative meaning, was particularly gratifying for Hegel in this respect. But while Hegel’s stance towards language changed and adapted to a certain extent according to the needs of the philosophical system and the state of things in society2, language itself never became for him a merely neutral medium of communication between subjects, as it is usually understood to be. More importantly, his concepts did not even directly reflect meaning but rather pointed to the impasse embedded in everyday language, which manifests itself in the most speculative leaps in the meaning of the same words, obscuring the fact that what we are really dealing with is a lack of meaning itself. And out of this emptiness, out of this nothingness, emerges, for Hegel, through the language of a free, self-conscious being, “a whole world […] the only true and conceivable creation out of nothing”3.

  • 4 Hegel 2010: 385.
  • 5 Nuzzo 2006: 77.

2Spirit is therefore not only expressed in language, but language, as Hegel emphasizes in the Phenomenology of Spirit, is its Dasein4, which we see in its most elementary form in the so-called speculative proposition. This proposition contains in itself a contradiction of meanings. Even a simple thought, for instance the thought that something is, must be expressed through the (language of) judgement, which, through the act of expressing, introduces a kind of minimal distinction between that which is meant and that which is thought, enunciation and enunciated, subjectivity and objectivity. We will follow these threads that hold Hegel’s method together, and through them point out that his method is “not only formulated by but also practiced through that [speculative] language”5. Language, according to Hegel, is not driven by a set of (grammatical) rules since it is inventing the road travelled on. But while we will rely on this constitutive role of language in the unfolding of thought, the ultimate aim will be to highlight the subtleties of language’s contradictions with itself, which underpin what makes speculation speculation. But first of all, let us look at the underlying features of thought, where the spirit of language takes shape.

  • 6 Hegel 2010: 46.
  • 7 Hegel 1986f: 602.

3It is well known that Kant tried to draw a demarcation line for understanding by means of experience, because he was burdened by the idea that understanding by itself can only give rise to fictions (Hirngespenst), a fear that had already begun to subside among philosophers of the time, until it was finally dispelled by Hegel, who saw this unease as a mere delusion. He resolutely went beyond the boundaries of critical philosophy and committed himself to the speculative principle of thought irrespective of any other content. In this respect, it was necessary to proceed in a scientific manner, “in the element of free, self-contained thought, in pure knowledge”6. This does not, however, mean that we use logic as a repository of the rules and laws of thought, which gives people unlimited access to knowledge, since logic can in the last instance only have a subjective character. While Hegel admired the logic of Aristotle’s, who “recognized the activities of abstract thought, […] and determined the forms which thought assumes within us”7, he also acknowledged that Aristotle remained confined to the boundaries of traditional logic. The advantage of Hegelian speculative logic, which arose from this reflection, is that it always has its object of consideration at hand, since it does nothing other than dwell on thinking of thought, on pure thinking, or on the bare determinations of reason.

  • 8 Hegel 1986g: 178.

4Hegel’s acute awareness here is that speculation does not yet remove the reproach of it being simply a mental formation, one that stands on the shoulders of its own presuppositions. Hegel himself likens speculation to mystification8, in which some see truth and others deception. Even though concrete thoughts must touch the solid bone of the skull at some point, this moment is likewise where a certain extent of mystification emerges. But the mystery only manifests itself in understanding, for which it appears as something inconceivable and abstract. We will not linger too much on this aspect at this time, as our interest in speculation is directly tied to reason instead.

5The quality of rationality, which is naturally intrinsic to each of us, is initially expressed through our immediate prejudices and presuppositions, i.e. subjective determinations. We do not really dwell on these determinations when matters of speculation are at hand, but rather do away with or sublate them. Speculation is namely not mere asset speculation, even if it results in a positive surplus value of the initial investment of thought-matter. One could say that speculation is in this respect the positive determination of the logical; thought-things which, in dissolution (Auflösung) and transition (Übergehen), are determined in otherness.

  • 9 Hegel 2018: 16.
  • 10 Hegel 1986a: 82.

6What is characteristic of thoughts, which constitutes the foci of our interest, is that they are first and foremost expressed in the form of language. The speculative value of language is not so evident in one-sided sentences of the type “the absolute is the unity of subject and substance”. In such cases, we are only asserting their unity. Speculative quality is rather expressed in the paradigmatic propositions, e.g. “substance is subject”9, which preserves the antagonism of difference and unity. Language is all the more precious for Hegel because it acts as something “sensuous-nonsensuous through the expanding knowledge of which the child’s spirit [...] is elevated to the universal, to thinking”10. And let us not forget that the term logikḗ (λογική) originally referred to words, or to that which is spoken. In what follows, we will therefore focus on this speculatively galvanized theory of language that Hegel put together in various writings by following the conceptual necessities that led him to adopt such radical and peculiar premises.

2. From barbarism to language

  • 11 Aristotle 1966: 15.
  • 12 The basis of expression is speaking in Greek (Aristotle 2007: 181).

7Let us begin with a simple assertion: language is the cornerstone of speculation. This is hardly a unique approach, since already the “first philosophers”11 were presented as men who by nature spoke. Surely this is an obvious fact that no one, with the exception of cynics and Pythagoreans, should dispute. Yet it is not just a matter of a general human capacity for expressing thought, because the link between language and thought has a more radical common conception. Let us take these diverse pioneering thinkers mentioned above, a part of whose nature it is to exercise the faculty of their voice. What defined their adherence to the premise of the logos was true exclusively of the Greek language; to speak Greek was necessary for an individual even to be considered a human being, since they did not speak the language, but the language spoke for them. Consequently, it can be argued that, particularly in the Greek-speaking world, discourse and reason coincided. Hence comes the conclusion that to consider a man as a person who speaks, thinks, and lives well, in short, in his cultivated form, can only be done through Hellenistic language12.

  • 13 “Pourtant, la barbarie existe” (Cassin 1992: 20). For a lexical entry of the term “βάρβαρος” see Ba (...)
  • 14 Ancient Greeks regarded everyone outside the confines of Greek civilization – all foreigners – as b (...)
  • 15 Antiphon 1960: 352. Antiphon highlights the ambiguity of the word barbaric. Although he introduces (...)
  • 16 Hegel 1986b: 226.
  • 17 The idea of untranslatability is not merely a matter of there being certain concepts that cannot be (...)
  • 18 Ponge 1961: 209.

8So what are the others, if they do not possess the capacity of this language and related thought? Barbarians (Barbaroi)13, or those who do not speak but instead chant “blah-blah-blah”14, which may seem too coarse a label, but we need only turn to the sophist Antiphon, who, with the question “Who really is a barbarian?”15 shows the internal tension of this premise. It is true that barbarians represented the antipode of citizens, even to people as such, a position that was not alien even to Hegel: “The barbarians do not know how to say what they mean, they say only half or the opposite of what they want to say”16. But who is really being addressed by Antiphone? It is actually that individual who speaks of barbarians and thus barbarises. Imbued with logos, he is the one casting the net over the individual determinations and not these others, the barbarians. In the relationship between the Greek and the barbarian, we might even recognise a certain prefiguration of the dialectic of master and servant, since it was held that the barbarian submits to the despotic whims so as not to be disposed of. These linguistic tensions that permeate the idea of the barbarian are points of “untranslatability”17, as Barbara Cassin calls them, words that (do not) stop translating or constructing themselves because they constantly create impasses. The kind of shamelessness18 that Ponge defines as Greek sophistic arrogance was built into these reflections on language and thought. If speculation expresses itself exclusively in language, it is always in imminent danger of slipping into sophism, but we must take this risk into account.

  • 19 Hegel 1986d: 412.
  • 20 Hegel 2018: 67.
  • 21 Simon 2002: 35.
  • 22 “The sign must be proclaimed a great accomplishment. […] So for example, a cockade or a flag or a t (...)

9While the sophists were in principle speculative philosophers, their “aridity did not concern all mankind and man’s essential aspects”19. The most comprehensive elaboration of the interplay between reason and language, which ushered in the contemporary understanding of their pairing by preserving their internal tension, can be found precisely in Hegel’s aptly named speculative philosophy. A cursory glance at Hegel’s conception of the linguistic dimension of speculation, on whose basis speculation as such is not only presented in its clearest light but takes on its true form, shows us the fundamental role he attributed to language in the production of thought. On the one hand, he claims that speech has a “divine nature”20, but on the other, despite certain attempts, he does not seem to be able to write it down as an elementary principle of representation (Darstellung) alongside sensuous certainty. It is curious that Hegel deprived precisely these two forms of the capacity to represent, since sensuality is the very opposite of language. Sensuous certainty namely expresses itself as “a mute, wordless pointing, which cannot come to the word, and cannot come to philosophy”21. But even in the most basic unit of a sign, the linguistic form encroaches on the sensual form, giving the sensual material, for example a flag, an alien meaning22. Sensual content is therefore never really pure, as it is always already imbued with a speculative structure.

  • 23 This argument can be found, for example, in Smith 1988.

10But in what sense does Hegel engage with language that is out of the ordinary or uncommon? Although he makes many critical remarks about sentence form, he is also unable to realise his philosophy without having closely attached himself to the contradictory use of language. One could even say that there is something barbaric about his use of language – it alienates the familiar and the known. A look at his style should be sufficient to support this assertion23. More formally speaking, it is the sublation of the Kantian reflective sentence for the speculative that underlies Hegel’s thinking on language. This speculative dimension is not present as a special kind of discursive form, but rather via the chatter of everyday language, which, however, through a speculative lens preserves all the linguistic characteristics and ambiguities of formal language. Hegel is therefore fully aware of the necessity of a finite natural language that binds reason in its action, but is also not blind to the need to transcend its limitations. But while it now seems that the road to the absolute is for Hegel paved with linguistic building blocks, these in themselves tell us nothing about the structure itself. This in no way relegates language to a subordinate position; on the contrary, for what is essential for the discussion at hand is the realization that it is only through language, through a systematic examination of its finer mechanics and foundations, that we can arrive at an insight into speculative philosophy of the kind that Hegel had already begun to conceive in Jena.

  • 24 For the sake of variety and abundance, let us mention only some of the more important studies. W. M (...)
  • 25 Hegel 1984: 265-266.
  • 26 Houlgate 2006: 72.
  • 27 While we agree with Nuzzo that the “language in which Hegel’s philosophy is written is constitutive (...)

11As already mentioned, despite the many occasions where Hegel articulates the highest truths with reference to language, he does not give this topic a specific structural place, let alone a separate work. There are ample notes and studies of this deficiency in the various schools of philosophy24, and objections were raised from the outset that he was undermining his own claims through his specific (alienating) use of language, which resisted formalisation. In a little-known correspondence with his colleague Pfaff, Hegel is reproached regarding the structuring of The Science of Logic with “the use of categories, in the interpretation of dialectical passages, which are not derived or justified, but rather assumed” and “borrowed from another theory”25. Derivation thus depends on the fact that the later categories are grounded in earlier ones, which are ultimately only a reflection of “presuppositionless” derivation of the categories in a natural language that contains “unproven assumptions and concepts”26. It is possible to argue that the mere existence of language is sufficient to confirm its own pertinence, or, moreover, since the system is written with rhetorical mechanisms and grammatical rules, we cannot ignore this fact, but must, on the contrary, take into account all the logical implications contained therein27. As is the case with dialectics, we must extract language from the conceptual shell of Hegel’s (logical) grasp.

12We could try to compensate for the aforementioned deficiency of Hegel’s linguistic theory with authors with whom he himself was acquainted, who, in the same period, dealt with the subject in a relatively coherent way and who seem to have (in)directly influenced him (e.g. Hamann, Herder, Schleiermacher). We will briefly touch on their ideas, bearing in mind that the difficulty with this approach lies in the fact that the science of language or linguistics did not really exist at that time, as philology, in a narrower sense, occupied its place. Even if there are various interpretations following which the architectural outlines of Hegel’s linguistic theory could be discerned in a wide variety of places and in surprising sources, it is perhaps more productive to look at his own philosophical system and extract linguistic traits from the core ideas at hand.

3. Language with Hegel

  • 28 Hegel 1986a: 178.

13Having brought to light the conceptual skeleton of language in the preceding paragraphs, it is now time to give the floor to Hegel and challenge him as to whether the term speculation is really best suited to wedding fantasies and market transactions, as he describes the literal use of this term in passing28, or whether speculation actually has a more contradictory role. In so doing, we will disarm him to such an extent that he will hardly be able to resist the real question, which is the status of the paradoxical role that he assigns to language. As a rule, Hegel is rarely clueless about consequences; that we might accurately discern the sense in which he understands the relation between speculation, language, and thought, we must take a step back and sideways, and thereby revisit the conceived path, because in this way we will also be better able to devise techniques for thinking what necessarily eludes thought’s grip.

14The notions of speculation, language, and thought are embedded in and expressed through reason. Hegel was confronted with a complex situation, which he, along with the philosophical community of the time, inherited from Kant; a kind of “peculiar fate” of reason, which characterises the modern era inaugurated by the Critique of Pure Reason. Although, according to Kant, reason is unequivocally burdened by questions that can neither be easily dismissed nor satisfactorily answered, he did not present a simple solution to this predicament. That is, reason is subject to the limitations imposed on it by thought itself. For Kant, this was not a major obstacle. What thought cannot grasp is accessible only to the infinite intellect of God, through intellectual intuition, which can handle objects directly, without the need for conceptual mediation. However, such a perspective should only be understood as a methodological assumption.

  • 29 Hamann 1965: 212.
  • 30 Hegel 1986c: 328.

15One way to bypass this divine barrier is via linguistics, which was first formulated in a rudimentary form by Hamann and Herder, and was followed by almost all thinkers of the time, including Hegel, who integrated it into the view of the science of “objective thinking”. Although Kant outlined the blueprint for a new age and thereby planted the seeds of the conditions under which it is possible to think the conditions of possibility of thought, objections quickly arose. One of the more crucial criticisms was put forth by Hamann, alleging that pure reason is not yet sufficiently pure; it earns this characteristic only when it is put in the reins of language, for “language is the sole, first and last organon and criterion of the reason”29, to which Hegel adds the crucial supplement that “language is also the center of the reason’s misunderstandings with itself”30. If understanding stumbles over its own partial positions, reason goes all the way to the end by sublating its own position, as this is the only way it can grasp its own justification in itself. In this sense, a consistent philosophical stance can only be a consistent thinking of this negativity, an effort that is necessarily produced by reason itself.

  • 31 Hegel 1986b: 17.

16Philosophy, hence, comes about when thought begins to think thought, which is nothing else than speculation, or, “the activity of the one and universal reason upon itself”31. But we have not yet clarified the crucial question: where does language enter the scene? Addressing the demand for philosophy, the necessity of its intervention into the bosom of existence, Hegel offers a more precise definition:

  • 32 This need for philosophy should be understood both as the need (at this time) for philosophy, and w (...)
  • 33 Ivi: 24.

The need (Bedürfniss) for philosophy32 can be expressed as its presupposition [...] What is called the presupposition of philosophy is nothing else than the need that has come to utterance (ausgesprochene)33.

  • 34 Hegel 1986b: 282.
  • 35 Ivi: 277.

17When we are confronted with needs, it is difficult to avoid the association of lack and absence, but for Hegel it arises when something is said, because through an utterance we also affirm a separation (Entzweiung). We will return to this point regarding utterances shortly. He makes a related point at the very beginning of the philosophy of spirit, where language appears as “the first potency of consciousness [...] the formal existence of spirit”34. It should also be borne in mind that for Hegel language is not merely a means of communicative expression, since the existence of consciousness is linguistic, i.e. “its being as language”35.

  • 36 Hegel 2018: 439.

18The status of language, accordingly, cannot be equated with any Cartesian foundation or irrefutable substance, since it is not ascribed to the content-filled figure of the spirit, but rather represents a kind of tension at its heart; language is the mediating middle, the first breath of the spirit, but also the product of its spirithood, the vocal secretion. It is not a mere natural function, of the kind that the ancient Greeks reproached the barbarians for, nor is it an external incision of nature into the figure of the spirit, and even to a lesser extent can it be regarded as a product of arbitrariness or as a means of cognition. In this centralised capacity, between the exhalation of air and the prudent vocalisation, in this state of suspension between the already and the not yet, is where the whole drama of language is played out. Just as the wind catches a sail, so too does language embody the Spirit, and only in doing so does it achieve consistency, concreteness. We could therefore be speaking of a touch rather than a bond between both aspects. Touching is only a potentiality, as the finger cannot directly contact the surface itself, but marks the gap between the intention and the deed; the touch is thus liminal, relating to a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. In touch, the most intimate and the most external comes to the fore, internal concreteness of spirit and the external indeterminacy of Nature as one. In this sense, language touches us. As Hegel notes in the Phenomenology’s section on “The Living Work of Art”, language is “the perfect element in which inwardness is just as external as externality is inward”36. The argument regarding the presence of externality that affects us from our innermost intimacy is presented in much the same way, but in more detail, in the Encyclopaedia, where he also outlines the implications for thinking.

  • 37 Hegel 1986a: 280.

We only know our thoughts, only have definite, actual thoughts, when we give them the form of objectivity, of a being distinct from our inwardness, and therefore the shape of externality, and of an externality, too, that at the same time bears the stamp of the highest inwardness. The articulated sound, the word, is alone such inward externality37.

19Language is in this sense produced as something unpredictable, a self-determined positive product that can neither be placed in the sarcophagus of the body nor hung on the branches of a linguistic tree. But this affirmation is not only a work on external things, because it also lays the foundations of the interior itself, as a kind of belated cause.

  • 38 Hoffman 1996: 262.

There is something self-created in the simultaneous erasure [Tilgen] and erection [Setzen] of the presupposition [...] the external elements of articulation erase each other and at the same time return from it to a meaningful whole, to the interior of a simple concept38.

  • 39 Dolar 2013: 11.

20This specific reading of language in Hegel, according to which it embodies an inherent contradiction (the form of outwardness that also bears the hallmark of the purest inwardness), can also be transposed to a broader context. His initial wager of philosophy was to grasp unconditional self-knowledge. While the absolute is supposed to represent the conceptual image of this wholesome certainty, we are actually left with only a division into finitude and infinity that must be tackled in a particular manner. Rather than resorting to esoteric solutions, such as intellectual intuition, to bring them together, Hegel tried to expose the problem through an internal contradiction. The very discomfort caused by the empty place that yawns where the absolute should rest is the condition under which this predicament can occur. We therefore strive for a remedy in the form of an identity that would sew up the gap between the infinite and the finite, from which nothingness radiates. In asserting a positive being, which “is not a description of the proof of being, but a defense against the precariousness, piercing and insidious precariousness of the void that can swallow us up”39 – in this declaration of a decision in favour of an existence that is “for us” – we do not simply rehabilitate this missing connective tissue, but in fact address the other. In doing so, this time in a more concrete form, we are again confronted with the disjunction between thinking and its externalization in language.

  • 40 Hegel 2018: 43.
  • 41 Ivi: 44. This is also a way of ensuring universal determinations, which is not achieved at the end (...)

21If there is something explicitly binding in language, it is not tied to a cognition (Erkennen) but to recognition (Anerkennen) by the other, as it is “the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an instituted commonality of consciousnesses”40. This is achieved precisely in a way that escapes the formalisation of language. There is no manual by which we can be recognised as subjects, since this requires practical investment. The same is true of the need for philosophy; inasmuch as philosophy is done in mediation towards itself, it is all the more established in relation to otherness. In order to be able to place the absolute under a conceptual umbrella, philosophy has no other choice but to rely on the externalization of language, since it acts as the real dimension of self-referentiality. By positing philosophy as reflecting “the labor of the concept (Anstrengung des Begriffs)”41, Hegel also denied any non-conceptual or non-linguistic approach that would exclude natural language from its ontological menu. However, since he relocated the metaphysical reflection to the parameters of the finitude of language, the question remains as to how it is possible to think infinity along with it.

  • 42 Hegel 1986b: 18.

22Following traditional logic, which has more or less the form of an experimental science based on a cause-and-effect relationship, infinity is defined as the other of finitude, which makes this non-finitude (Nicht-endliche) itself one-sided and finite, since it is bound to negativity. Hegel countered this kind of conception with his own interpretation, according to which the notion of infinity can be understood on the condition that it is treated as a speculative notion, which is ultimately also crucial for the overall picture of Hegel’s philosophy. While a dogmatic individual is seduced by a superficial understanding of the categories, by clinging to a strict separation between finitude and infinity, the real infinity is something completely different, a process in the course of which the two opposing sides “unite”, thus preserving both as “situated in the absolute, i.e., as an identity”42. In this way, finitude is redefined as the ideal moment of infinite reflection, or, in other words, finitude is already implicit in infinity itself as the negation of finitude. In thinking’s demonstrated confrontation with itself lies all the speculative effort that can be used to ensure the unity of opposites.

  • 43 Hegel 1986e: 157.

23Perhaps it should now be easier to understand why language occupies a speculative pedestal; there is really nothing special about the act of speculation, but it has precisely the characteristic of being able to encompass and unite contradictory connotations in ordinary experience, especially in words that produce thoughts. This is also the logic behind Hegel’s insistence that, every time we say something, we must pay attention to what we say and what determinations we are presupposing. The precept found in The Science of Logic, namely “we must know what we say (Wissen, was man sagt)”43, should therefore not be seen as a suggestion to ease the path around conceptual loops, but as a general principle of speculative logic.

24With this conceptual clarification in mind, the predicament arising from the finitude of language and the striving for the absolute can now be seen in a completely different light. At the moment that understanding overlooks the one-sidedness of its position, it is already beyond the limit (Grenze) and begins to reflect on itself from the standpoint of reason. This is why the essential “advantage” of speculation is that it makes evident the final determinations established by understanding. It does this through the speculator’s grasping of their own inner limitations and in this sense by transcending their finitude. Language, limited by the finitude of its expression, is capable of this in the same vein. But it is precisely because of this handicap that it captures infinity in itself by combining in individual words a meaning that is opposed to it. This is why Hegel’s idea of language does not only have the characteristic that understanding imposes on it, but also reflects a purpose that only reason can give it. Speculative philosophy, as presented by Hegel, therefore has a two-ply sail, which works best when it catches the wind of the speculative sentence (Satz).

4. The speculative sentence

  • 44 For instance, Düsing 1984: 252.
  • 45 Hegel 2018: 36-37.
  • 46 Lau 2006: 60.
  • 47 Hegel 2018: 39. Hegel offers as an example the sentence “Gott ist das Sein”, which may seem as a no (...)

25In this respect, Hegel’s idea of the speculative sentence, which he highlights in his Phenomenology of Spirit, becomes all the more significant. What is so unique about the speculative sentence that would lead Hegel to place such a high value on it? Why does philosophy appear as though everyday language is not adequate to its needs? At first glance, it seems that Hegel intends to highlight the special quality of philosophical language embedded in speculative thought, while keeping the usual predicate sentence’s usage intact as a form of everyday speech. This is not such an unusual interpretation, as it can be found in the work of many authors44. The form of the speculative sentence is still engraved in the premises of the Aristotelian subject-predicate sentence, which even Kant recognised as the fundamental form of all intelligible discourse. However, the form of predication is deficient in that it is conceived from the position of understanding, which considers the subject to be “an objective fixed self” to which “the content is related as accident and predicate”45 in a proposition. In this manner, it “fails to articulate the movement of the Concept (Bewegung des Begriffs) adequately”46, which moves its content by its own nature. This operation breaks down the static basis of the subject by infusing the otherness of the predicate (as substance) with the subject of the content, thereby sublating both into the unity of the subject and predicate. As a comparison between the two forms of sentence, Hegel draws on what occurs in the rhythm between meter and accent, which “results from the oscillating midpoint and unification of both […], their unity emerges as harmony”47.

26But what Hegel is referring to when he speaks of the speculative character of sentences is not really a particular form of sentence structure, but the logic of the rational structure that is reflected in ordinary human language:

  • 48 Hegel 2010: 12.

Thought-forms are first and foremost exposed and inscribed in human language [...], language has penetrated into everything that [thought] makes its own, and everything that it transforms into language and expresses in it, whether concealed, mixed-up, or well defined, already contains a category [...], logic is its peculiar nature48.

  • 49 While A. V. Miller in his translation of Encyclopaedia (2007) refers to the bewußtlos as “subconsci (...)

27Hegel was not enchanted by ordinary language because of the value or meaning of individual words and sentences, but because it is only in everyday language that consciousness is able to express the logical form unconsciously (Bewusstlos)49. Language is therefore capable of containing different, often even contradictory meanings, which it combines speculatively.

  • 50 Hegel 2010: 13.
  • 51 Houlgate 2006: 98.

28The repository of speculative truths therefore consists not of abstract concepts but of ordinary words and their common usages, which provide the conditions under which pure categories and their immanent development can be understood. Since the logical categories are embedded in the form of thought itself, Hegel insists that it is precisely for this reason that we must dwell on that which is most familiar, on “those thought determinations which we employ everywhere, and are on our lips in every sentence we utter”50. The conceptual material that guides logic does not therefore consist of some esoteric language that we would have “hauled down from some remote intellectual heaven”51, in order then to formalise the absolute structure of rationality. Hegel rather takes as the object of his discussion ordinary categories and thought determinations (Denkbestimmungen), which he reconstructs and deduces into propositions. It is therefore all the more important for Hegel to preserve the usual terminology, which contains peculiar word games, etymological references, and general terminologies, in which speculation comes to the fore in its purest form. How handy language is in expressing speculative content is illustrated by Hegel in the ambiguity conveyed by the Latin term tollere (to exalt, to abolish, to choose) and exemplified by the Ciceronian quip tollendum esse Octavium, i.e. the exaltation of the Roman emperor Octavian and his simultaneous abolition from the world. Hence Hegel’s fascination with the German language.

  • 52 Hegel 2010: 12. The logic of perverting meaning through simply using language is inscribed in Hegel (...)

29In this respect, the German language has many advantages over other modern languages, for many of its words also have the further peculiarity of carrying, not just different meanings, but opposite ones, and in this one cannot fail to recognize the language’s speculative spirit. It can delight thought to come across such words, and to discover in naıve form, already in the lexicon as one word of opposite meanings, that union of opposites which is the result of speculation Philosophy, therefore, stands in no need of special terminology52.

  • 53 Beckett 1993: 191.

30We can dispel the notion that Hegel idolises German as the preferred philosophical language because of some substantive characteristic or lexical meaning, but because of its plasticity, peculiarity, and modifiability. This particularity of the German language did not escape Samuel Beckett, who, in his novella Dream of Fair to Middling Women, made the following observation about the German language through the character of Belacqua: “Scraps of German played in his mind in the silence that ensued; grand, old, plastic words”53.

  • 54 Hegel 2010: 82.
  • 55 Many thinkers saw in such use of the negativity of contradiction, which creates new positive meanin (...)

31The notion of sublation (Aufhebung) is clearly a paradigmatic example of this speculative character of German language, which is why Hegel reveres it as a fundamental philosophical determinant. The meaning of the word is twofold, “it equally means to keep, to preserve”, and also “to cause to cease, to put an end to”54. One word is inhabited by two meanings, both of which have the characteristic of negation, since even preservation is conditioned by a withdrawal from immediacy. But it is precisely in this that sublation expresses a speculative character, since it is only successful when it holds hands with a self-contradictory determinism55.

  • 56 Ivi: 46.
  • 57 Hegel 1986a: 114.
  • 58 Ivi: 20.

32Against the backdrop of the presented features of the linguistic form, Hegel’s specific logic is demonstrated ab initio. It is structured as a pure display of the movement of the logical categories themselves, which perpetuate the determinacy of the concept. The initial logical step “is to be made in the element of a free, self-contained thought”56, and through the necessity “to consider in and for itself”57 the thought-forms (Denkformen). Insofar as we are striving to formulate a pure speculative sentence, we must wrest logic from its self-perpetuating autarchy and raise it to its feet in the guise of science, so that the individual forms of thought are considered in themselves and in their necessary interdependence. The decision in favour of pure thought, as found in The Science of Logic and more explicitly within the Encyclopedia, immanently involves the dimension of language, since it must have an established expressive form. As we have repeatedly pointed out, “thought-forms must first and foremost be expressed and written in human language”58.

  • 59 Hegel 1986d: 106.
  • 60 Ibidem.
  • 61 Ivi: 107.

33Following Hegel, instead of treating logic linguistically, we have committed ourselves to a logical treatment of linguistics. Hegel takes logic deadly seriously, as a structuring moment of linguistic form. The reason for this is not to gain a better overview of the rules of language. Rather, he is interested in the simple fact that language itself delineates its field of activity, and thus the limits of the possible, while at the same time marking the parameters of speculative paradoxes. As regards the relation of language and logic, Hegel is already very clear in the late Jena period: “Logos (λόγος) is more determinate than the word”59, not because of its universal nature, but because of the “ambiguity of the Greek word – reason and language at once”60. Of course, it is not difficult to conclude that language participates in the appearance of reason in that it produces an utterance (Äußerung), which is at the same time a revelation, “for language is the pure existence of the spirit; it is a thing heard and returned to itself”61, but this is to say only half of the operation, since it must ensure its determinacy in otherness, in its doubling through judgment.

5. Otherness and impossibility in spirit

  • 62 Hegel 2010: 47.
  • 63 Hegel 2018: 49.

34Insofar as we adhere to Hegel’s scientific principle, according to which “all that we have to do to ensure that the beginning will remain immanent to the science of this knowledge is to consider, or rather, setting aside every reflection, simply to take up, what is there before us”62, we must consequently place in the logical mechanism in particular those phenomena that are most at hand. We have already pointed out that ordinary language is particularly suited for this crafting. We should not forget a crucial detail here. Language of conversation, and not the artificial conceptual apparatus, is in this respect given a privileged role, since in Hegel all concepts, even the highest ones (for instance the image of the absolute) are at first merely empty words. There is nothing inherently speculative in their nature except their movement. They only acquire their validity, one might even say their use-value, on the basis of the labour of the concept (Arbeit des Begriffs). But at the same time, this simplicity is a trap, for it can easily happen that through the work of logic we “capture the clouds of error rather than the heaven of truth”63. How, then, can consciousness be brought to itself, to the universality of thought, without stumbling over mistaken assumptions? Hegel’s answer is simple, and lies precisely in not being afraid of error.

35Hegel’s logic may not seem too peculiar in this respect, since it exhibits certain features that are already present in Aristotelian logic. We have already mentioned that the basic sentence form is based on the subject and the predicate, which are united in a copula. Let us just add a few details to the open discussion, specifically regarding the unity of the two components. Simply put, grammatically attributing predicates to a subject (“S is P”) is just a way of attributing meaning to something. Such judgements, which take the form of a sentence, are only possible and meaningful if there is some identity between the subject and the predicate; otherwise, we would not be able to ensure their truth. Through the overlapping of subject and predicate, we consequently obtain various kinds of ordinary judgments, such as “the rose is red”, where “rose” is the term for the subject, which is characterised in a particular way by the predicate “red”. We are dealing with a rose that has been given its own identity by a judgment.

  • 64 Kant 1998: 99.
  • 65 The German word “Urteil” provides etymological evidence for Hegel’s interpretation, according to wh (...)

36This subject-predicate structure usually overlaps with philosophical undertaking. Kant’s philosophy is beholden to this, in relation to the theory of categories as the original form of rational discourse64. Hegel challenges the one-sidedness of such a form, thereby also calling into question the presuppositions of traditional philosophy itself. Ever since Hegel pointed out in his early writings that the fundamental task of philosophy is the sublation of division, separation, or estrangement (Entzweiung), he grappled with the problem of expressing this division (Teilung) in philosophical parameters, more precisely in the form of judgements (Ur-teil). It is therefore impossible to express the essential unity of the concept by means of this original form of understanding. The reason for this is that the split character is inherent to understanding, as an original division (ursprüngliche Teilung)65.

  • 66 Hegel 1977: 89.
  • 67 Ivi: 91.

37The simple thought that something must be expressed through the (language of) judgement, which, through the act of expressing, divides by introducing a kind of minimal distinction between what is meant and what is thought, between enunciation and enunciated, subjectivity and objectivity. The consequences of such a primordial, original division are dealt with extensively by Hegel in relation to the question of the “source of the necessity of philosophy”66, although he does indeed see in it a “factor in life”. However, he is firmly opposed to the absolute fixation of such rigid opposites, since they distort the “living relation and reciprocity”67. That is to say, judgment must not appear as a static and completed formation, because within this disjunction there is a moment of negation, which we must not be afraid of, but take upon ourselves.

  • 68 Hegel 2018: 39.
  • 69 Dolar 2017: 53.
  • 70 It is well known that in Hegel’s system there is no dedicated system of philosophy of language. An (...)

38What propels the sentence into speculative waters is precisely that it begins to pass into its otherness, which the usual logic of judgment tries to avoid by clamouring to identity. By placing a particular clause in a sentence, it loses its self-sufficiency as it becomes usurped by the place it occupies. Take Hegel’s paradigmatic phrase “the actual is the universal (das Wirkliche ist das Allgemeine)”68, with which he inaugurates speculative sentence logic; putting the concept of actuality in the place of the subject of the sentence yields us nothing. More precisely, this nothing is a “meaningless sound”, which “acquires meaning only in retrospect, retroactively, and is conferred only by predicates. The production of meaning therefore takes place by adding to the empty sound a predicate which makes it meaningful in retrospect”69. The subject is therefore never imbued with meaning, but always represents the place of emptiness, which only facilitates the emergence of thought70. The speculative procedure is therefore based on the absence of a foundation, on an oversight, in all the ambiguous meanings that the concept implies: in not seeing something, in not paying attention to it, but at the same time becoming aware of it, discerning reality and, in retrospect, gaining the ability to see.

39Hegel, of course, never meant to abolish the ordinary sentence form, which consists of a subject-predicate relation; instead, with a rather deliberate strategy, he brings reflection to its limitations and takes up the implications. It is not a matter of finding a new mode of expression, but of a simple consideration. In line with the theoretical nature of speculation that we have been discussing, the speculative sentence is neither a special form of sentence different from the usual one, nor is it a speculative theory of predication, but a specific way of dealing with linguistic expression. The following is what Hegel says about the true meaning and function of the speculative sentence:

  • 71 Hegel 2018: 39.

What has been said can be expressed formally in this way. The nature of judgment, or of the proposition per se, which includes the difference between subject and predicate within itself, is destroyed by the speculative proposition, and the identical proposition, which the former comes to be, contains the counter-stroke to those relations71.

40Strictly speaking, speculative sentences are impossible sentences. They reflect the impossibility of language itself. Hegel turns this blind spot of reason to his own advantage by thematising the use of discourse by way of understanding. The divisive power expressed by language in a sense accomplishes the inhibition of thought by using identity sentences in a context where the conceptual grasp of things by predicate sentences is expected. This common-sense way of doing things fails, forcing us to reflect on this negation as a mishandling, and so to try to do the task over again from a different perspective. Under the compulsion of these constant corrections, our thinking abandons its original one-sidedness, and by extension, our own one-sided perception of creation. To be more precise, the linguistic act is not a constitutive mechanism that gives rise to thought, but must be understood as an adjunct of the spirit that marks the moment of alienation or externalization (Entäußerung). We may ask ourselves, what kind of mysticism is at work here?

  • 72 Hegel 1986a: 280.

41Since spirit is the totality of self-determination, there is no sphere independent of it, which means that everything can be thought, but this does not preclude the preservation of an exception, its dead angle, the moment of contingency in the form of expression in language. This electrifies the sphere of the spirit, but does so on its behalf, and thus bestows on it a positive image in the form of its own idea. These meanderings of language constitute the charge by which the speculative (over)leap of thought occurs in relation to its referent. This is the only way to understand why being inscribed in language means being inscribed in the order of knowledge, since it makes it possible to utter sentences we have never heard before and to understand phrases with which we are confronted for the first time. In this speculative manner, we are able to produce a surplus of thinking, which illuminates the fundamental connection of language and thinking. Let us not forget that this operation is already being done by simple rote learning. Knowing something by heart does not mean that we have mastered all the features and circumstances of the object of memorization. On the contrary: we have really learned a substance when we have fully externalized it, when we are not grappling with said substance verbally in our minds, in short, when words lose their meaning. This speculative productive charge, which is present in ordinary work on language in the form of remembering, manifests itself in the form of thinking. Or, as Hegel says in his rare chapter on language in the Encyclopedia, “the excess (Übermaß) of the recollection of the word veers round, so to speak, into extreme alienation (Entäußerung) of the intelligence”72.

42We started the article with a simple assertion: language is the cornerstone of speculation. Speculation is thus not only another name for the dialectical movement as it is usually equated, but is actual only as the expression of the contradictory character of language. Importantly, speculation is able to keep the split character that is inherent to propositional understanding of the world, as an original division between subject and predicate, which cuts across both the form and content of what is articulated, intact by introducing a liveliness of spirit – sublating otherness and returning to itself with a different quality. The division is thus affirmed, but only on the condition that the individual elements are emptied out. This means that the meaning of concepts is evacuated, which points to the impasse embedded in everyday language and manifests itself in the speculative alienation of the meaning of the same words. But only such an empty form, where a lack or void of meaning prevails, is what ultimately determines the production of thought, or can be seen as the birthplace of thought as such.

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Bibliografia

Antiphon. 1960, Alḗtheia, Fragment B, in H. Diels, W. Kranz (eds), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Berlin, Weidmannsche Verlagbuchhandlung.

Aristotle. 1966, Metaphysik, Hamburg, Rowohlt.

Aristotle. 2007, Rhetorik, Stuttgart, Philipp Reclam.

Babiniotis, G. 2008, Λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Dictionary of the New Greek Language], 3rd edition, Athens, Kentro Lexikologias.

Beckett, S. 1993, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, New York, Arcade Publishing.

Bodammer, T. 1969, Hegels Deutung der Sprache, Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag.

Cassin, B. 1992, «Barbariser» et «citoyenner» OU On n’échappe pas à Antiphon. “Rue Descartes”, no. 3: 19-34.

Cassin, B. 2014, Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Cook, J.D. 1973, Language in the Philosophy of Hegel, The Hague, Mouton.

Derrida, J. 1986, Glas, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.

Dolar, M. 2013, The atom and the void – from Democritus to Lacan, “Filozofski vestnik”, 34(2): 11-26.

Dolar, M. 2017, Heglova Fenomenologija duha, Ljubljana, Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo.

Düsing, K. 1984, Das Problem der Subjektivitat in Hegels Logik: Systematiche und Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Prinzip des Idealismus und Zur Dialektik, Bonn, Bouvier Verlag.

Forster, N.M. 2011, German Philosophy of Language. From Schlegel to Hegel and Beyond, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Hamann, J.G. 1965, Metakritik über den Purismum der Vernunft (1784), in Id., Briefwechsel. Fünfter Band. 1783-1785, Frankfurt a.M., Insel Verlag.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1977, Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy, Albany, State University of New York Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1984, Hegel: The Letters, Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986a, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse 1830. Dritter Teil. Die Philosophie des Geistes, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986b, Jenaer Systementwürfe I: Das System der spekulativen Philosophie, Hamburg.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986c, Berliner Schriften, 1818-1831, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986d, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie I, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986e, Wissenschaft der Logik I, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986f, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1986g, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse 1830. Erster, Frankfurt a.M., Suhrkamp.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1998, Schriften und Entwürfe (1799-1808), Hamburg, Meiner Verlag.

Hegel, G.W.F. 2007, Philosophy of Mind, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. 2010, The Science of Logic, New York, Cambridge University Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. 2018, Phenomenology of Spirit, New York, Cambridge University Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. 1996, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) in T. Borsche (ed.), Klassiker der Sprachphilosophie, München, Beck.

Hölderlin, F. 1962, Urteil und Sein in id., Sämmtliche Werke 6, Stuttgart, F. Beissner.

Houlgate, S. 2006, The Opening of Hegel’s Logic from Being to Infinity, West Lafayette, Purdue University Press.

Hyppolite, J. 1997, Logic and Existence, Albany, State University of New York Press.

Kant, I. 1998, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag.

Lau, C.-F. 2006, Language and metaphysics: The dialectics of Hegel’s speculative proposition in J. O’Neill Surber (ed.), Hegel and Language, Albany, State University of New York Press.

Löwith, K. 1966, Hegel und die Sprache in Vorträge und Abhandlungen. Zur Kritik der christlichen Uberlieferung, Stuttgart, Kohlhamme: 97-118.

Marx, W. 1967, Absolute Reflexion und Sprache, Frankfurt a.M., Klostermann.

McCumber, J. 1993, The Company of Words: Hegel, Language, and Systematic Philosophy, Evanston, Northwestern University Press.

Nuzzo, A. 2006, The Language of Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy in J. O’Neill Surber (ed.), Hegel and Language, Albany, State University of New York Press.

Ponge, F. 1961, Tentatives orales in Méthodes, Paris, Gallimard Folio/Essais.

Simon, J. 1966, Das Problem der Sprache bei Hegel, Mainz, Kohlhammer.

Simon, J. 2002, In Namen denken. Sprache und Begriff bei Hegel in B. Lindorfer, D. Naguschewski (eds), Hegel: Zur Sprache. Beiträge zur Geschichte des europäischen Sprachdenkens, Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag: 33-46.

Smith, J.H. 1988, The Spirit and Its Letter: Traces of Rhetoric in Hegel’s Philosophy of Bildung, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

Waterfiled, R. 2000, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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Note

1 For a general overview, see Forster 2011; O’Neill 2006; McCumber 1993; Cook 1973; Bodammer 1969.

2 Forster 2011: 148-149. In this respect, the influence of Herder 1772 on his philosophy is significant, especially the premise that the emergence of thought is determined by language.

3 Hegel 1986a: 234.

4 Hegel 2010: 385.

5 Nuzzo 2006: 77.

6 Hegel 2010: 46.

7 Hegel 1986f: 602.

8 Hegel 1986g: 178.

9 Hegel 2018: 16.

10 Hegel 1986a: 82.

11 Aristotle 1966: 15.

12 The basis of expression is speaking in Greek (Aristotle 2007: 181).

13 “Pourtant, la barbarie existe” (Cassin 1992: 20). For a lexical entry of the term “βάρβαρος” see Babiniotis (2008).

14 Ancient Greeks regarded everyone outside the confines of Greek civilization – all foreigners – as barbarous or “those whose language sounded like bar-bar” (Waterfield 2000: 332).

15 Antiphon 1960: 352. Antiphon highlights the ambiguity of the word barbaric. Although he introduces the term by characterizing barbarians as “those who are not of good family we neither (respect) nor revere” (ibidem), he immediately introduces a more general principle that makes them by nature human and thus equal to the Hellenes.

16 Hegel 1986b: 226.

17 The idea of untranslatability is not merely a matter of there being certain concepts that cannot be ultimately translated, but more importantly that there is a particular instability of meaning and sense-making present. See Cassin 2014.

18 Ponge 1961: 209.

19 Hegel 1986d: 412.

20 Hegel 2018: 67.

21 Simon 2002: 35.

22 “The sign must be proclaimed a great accomplishment. […] So for example, a cockade or a flag or a tomb-stone means something entirely different from what it immediately indicates”. (Hegel 1986a: 269)

23 This argument can be found, for example, in Smith 1988.

24 For the sake of variety and abundance, let us mention only some of the more important studies. W. Marx: “in der Sprachform, in der das Denken seinen Inhalt als einen ‘wahren’ auszusprechen versucht” (Marx 1967: 8); Löwith: “Man muß Mut haben […] in einer Sprache denken” (Löwith 1966: 118); Simon: “das Bewußtsein kann sich allein in der Sprache erfahren” (Simon 1966: 6); Derrida: “This always objective language hence attains sense and weight only in the spirit of the reader” (Derrida 1986: 76).

25 Hegel 1984: 265-266.

26 Houlgate 2006: 72.

27 While we agree with Nuzzo that the “language in which Hegel’s philosophy is written is constitutive of the dialectical method that structures speculative philosophy as system” (Nuzzo 2006: 77), we do not follow her in claiming that this is true specifically for the language of Hegel’s system. Our wager is rather that this speculative charge is present in language as such.

28 Hegel 1986a: 178.

29 Hamann 1965: 212.

30 Hegel 1986c: 328.

31 Hegel 1986b: 17.

32 This need for philosophy should be understood both as the need (at this time) for philosophy, and what philosophy needs (at this time).

33 Ivi: 24.

34 Hegel 1986b: 282.

35 Ivi: 277.

36 Hegel 2018: 439.

37 Hegel 1986a: 280.

38 Hoffman 1996: 262.

39 Dolar 2013: 11.

40 Hegel 2018: 43.

41 Ivi: 44. This is also a way of ensuring universal determinations, which is not achieved at the end of the path of despair, but is at the very core of individual self-perception. As Hyppolite pointed out: “they [determinations] establish a community and a continuity between things which do not correspond to this opinion, which is, moreover, common, according to which the singular alone exists, is the first genuine object of sense certainty, the certainty which believes itself to be immediate and which claims to apprehend” (Hyppolite 1997: 8).

42 Hegel 1986b: 18.

43 Hegel 1986e: 157.

44 For instance, Düsing 1984: 252.

45 Hegel 2018: 36-37.

46 Lau 2006: 60.

47 Hegel 2018: 39. Hegel offers as an example the sentence “Gott ist das Sein”, which may seem as a normal predicative sentence; however, it allows him to reflect on the limits of understanding and show the “underlying conceptual framework unarticulated but implicitly presupposed by that proposition” (Lau 2006: 63). The predicate of this example is being (Sein), which has a substantial meaning and thereby overshadows the subject God (Gott). The disposed fixed subject introduces inhibition into thought, so that it seeks to retrieve it where it is missing, but finds there only the predicate, which therefore takes the form of the subject.

48 Hegel 2010: 12.

49 While A. V. Miller in his translation of Encyclopaedia (2007) refers to the bewußtlos as “subconscious”, a more appropriate translation for it is certainly “unconscious”, which was used by M. J. Petry in his edition (1970). The negative prefix un- denotes the opposite meaning of the word rather than a spatial feature.

50 Hegel 2010: 13.

51 Houlgate 2006: 98.

52 Hegel 2010: 12. The logic of perverting meaning through simply using language is inscribed in Hegel’s system throughout practically all periods. For example, in The Phenomenology of Spirit, he declares that “speech, which itself has the divine nature of immediately inverting the meaning, then of making it into something else” (Hegel 2018: 67).

53 Beckett 1993: 191.

54 Hegel 2010: 82.

55 Many thinkers saw in such use of the negativity of contradiction, which creates new positive meanings, violence against language. See, for example, Nuzzo 2006: 76.

56 Ivi: 46.

57 Hegel 1986a: 114.

58 Ivi: 20.

59 Hegel 1986d: 106.

60 Ibidem.

61 Ivi: 107.

62 Hegel 2010: 47.

63 Hegel 2018: 49.

64 Kant 1998: 99.

65 The German word “Urteil” provides etymological evidence for Hegel’s interpretation, according to which judgement is the original division of the concept (ursprüngliche Teilung), which was first put forward by Hölderlin in his famous Urtheil und Seyn (cf. Hölderlin 1962: 226).

66 Hegel 1977: 89.

67 Ivi: 91.

68 Hegel 2018: 39.

69 Dolar 2017: 53.

70 It is well known that in Hegel’s system there is no dedicated system of philosophy of language. An approximation to this is contained in his discussion on signs and language in the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), §458-64. In it he shows the essential bond between repetition, alienation, and remembrance, where it is precisely the loss of meaning of individual words that comes to the fore. If we really want to remember something, it is only possible “when there is no sense in the words (wenn man keinen Sinn bei den Worten hat)” (Hegel 1986a: 281). We will return to the implications of this operation at the very end of this article.

71 Hegel 2018: 39.

72 Hegel 1986a: 280.

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Goran Vranešević, «Speculative conception of thought: Hegel on language»Rivista di estetica, 86 | 2024, 87-108.

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Goran Vranešević, «Speculative conception of thought: Hegel on language»Rivista di estetica [Online], 86 | 2024, online dal 01 décembre 2024, consultato il 19 février 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/estetica/17559; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/13873

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