The Immanent Word

The Immanent Word establishes that the philosophical study of language inaugurated in the 1759 works of Hamann and Lessing marks a paradigm shift in modern philosophy; it analyzes the transformation of that shift in works of Herder, Kant, Fichte, Novalis and Schlegel. It contends that recent studies of early linguistic philosophy obscure the most relevant commission of its thinkers, arguing against the theological appropriation of Hamann by John Milbank; against the "expressive" appropriation of Hamann and Herder by Christina Lafont and Charles Taylor; and against Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy's uncritical championing of Schlegel's ideological position.

Katie Terezakis

Preface and Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part One Radical Tradition: Hamann and Lessing; Chapter One Hamann's Challenge; Chapter Two Lessing's Letters and Demands; Part Two The Divided Heart of Naturalism: Herder; Chapter Three Herder's Treatise on the Origin of Language; Chapter Four Herder and Kant; Part Three Jena Romanticism: The Promise of Logology and the Production of Incomprehensibility; Chapter five Fichte on Idealism and Language; Chapter Six Novalis and the Renewal of Logology; Chapter Seven Schlegel's On Incomprehensibility and Ideas; concl Concluding Remarks;