Ontotheological understanding of language in the works by J.G. Hamann

. Understanding of the language in the works by J.G. Hamann is considered as preceding the M. Heidegger’s philosophy of language. However, if Heidegger refuses the theological concepts and thinks the language exclusively in an ontological way, Hamann understands the language not in an ontological, but in an ontotheological way. Hamann’s apprehension of the word as both the ground of all things and the basis of human understanding is discussed. The relationship between the word of God and the word of man; speech as a “translation” of the God’s word, that sounds in the creation, into the human language; the specifics of the language situation after the fall, are discussed as the essential themes of Hamann’s philosophy of language. The historicity of human language and speech and the interrelations between language, creativity and sexuality are posed as important themes of Hamann’s controversy with the contemporary to him philosophy of the Enlightenment contesting the instrumental understanding of language characteristic of the Enlighteners and their understanding of reason as having no external preconditions, a supraindividual and supra-historical instance.

Hamann, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Enlightenment, language, word, speech, analogy, creation, philosopher, poet

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2. Betz, J.R. (2009), After Enlightment. The Post-Secular Vision of J.G. Hamann, WileyBlackwell, Chichester, UK.

3. Nadler J. (1949), Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788). Der Zeuge des Corpus mysticum, Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg, Austria.