Philosophical languages, Romantic historicism, Hegel, Marx
Edited from original of 08 July 2006:
Cook, Daniel J. “Marx’s Critique Of Philosophical Language,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 42 (June 1982): 530-554.
ABSTRACT: Though Marx never systematically developed a theory of language, he often commented in his pre-1848 writings on the role of language in traditional philosophies and ideologies. In this paper, I examine Marx’s critique of philosophical and ideological language. the first part is devoted to sketching the origins of Marx’s ideas on language. The second part analyzes the strategies Marx used in his earliest critical writings to criticize the ‘languages’ of philosophy and ideology. The third part examines Marx’s (and now Engels’) comments in The German Ideology on the role and use of language in furthering the ideological purposes of the ruling class. The final part of the paper extrapolates Marx’s own position on the nature of the proper language for philosophy and the social sciences.
[I originally meant to write a follow-up to this post, but I didn't get to it.]
characteristica universalis -> Romantic historicism -> Hegel -> Marx -> ??
. . . While interested in various issues connected with each of the subjects contained herein, it never occurred to me to tie them together in a way suggested by this paper. . . . Since early adolescence, I’ve maintained an interest in the history of the philosophical languages created in the early modern period, a.k.a. the “universal character” or characteristica universalis, the theory and practice of which include Descartes, Leibniz, Beck, Urquhart, Lodwick, Dalgarno, Wilkins, et al:
Philosophical and Universal Languages, 1600-1800, and Related Themes: Selected Bibliography
My perspective on the historical meaning of this endeavor as well as the basis of this interest has mutated over the decades. Recently, I was motivated to take another look at Leibniz, and while updating various bibliographies, stumbled upon this article (again?) yesterday. Uncannily, this article also relates to my long-term project of analyzing the fundamental dualities operant in modern philosophy and society. The characteristica universalis is related to the contemporaneous project (going back at least to Descartes, though of course there are precedents, such as Ramon Llull who inspired Leibniz’ ars combinatoria) of mathesis universalis, or the logical ordering and expression of all knowledge with the additional aim of generating new knowledge. This was a commonplace project in the wake of the scientific revolution and its concomitant philosophical revolution. There were dissenters such as Vico . . . but this was a big deal [through] the 18th century.
Cook contrasts this with the next big conceptual shift, German Romanticism and historicism, which rejected these impersonal, universalistic, abstract, and logical schemes of the Enlightenment, in favor of historicism, particularism, and cultural relativism, philosophically embodied in the idealistic conception of Geist (volksgeist, weltgeist, zeitgeist, oy!). It’s commonly known that this is tied up with the German reaction to the French Revolution, but I had not thought this through with respect to linguistics, though I was certainly dimly aware of Herder, Schlegel, von Humboldt, etc. Though some of the figures involved in this historicist and relativist/particularist episteme were liberals, the general historical thrust of volkishness is mystical, irrationalist, and reactionary, culminating in Spengler, Heidegger, and Auschwitz.
Hegel presents a special problem. He perpetuates the concept of Geist, but redirects its narrowly nationalistic, particularistic, and irrationalist bent, substituting his schema of universal history as the progress of reason and freedom. I’m not in a position to evaluate Hegel’s philosophy of language, but it is known that he rejected the model of philosophy based on mathematics, and invested himself in the development of German as a paramount philosophical language. Most of the comments I’ve made so far come from me, not Cook.
Cook discusses Hegel’s approach to philosophical language briefly. Interestingly, Hegel wanted to breach the gap between formal and specialized languages accessible only to the few (such as the characteristica universalis, in spite of some of its more popular ambitions) and utilize natural language in some fashion to this end. (Ironic, given Hegel’s impenetrability to professional philosophers, not to mention the general public.) Hegel also encouraged the development of philosophical language in other national languages, to liberate philosophy from the need to know Latin and to make it more universally accessible. Cook doesn’t go into detail, so there’s not much more I can yet offer on this topic. But surely Hegel has something critical to say in his works about the related projects of mathesis universalis, characteristica universalis, and ars combinatoria.
