Language and Comprehension in Hegel´s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit

FERREIRO, HÉCTOR

Gante

Workshop; Workshop Kant-Fichte-Hegel; 2011

Ghent University

Although at first sight Hegel seems to introduce language in his System primarily out from the analysis of the relation of the meaning to the content that designates it and not out from its relation to the singular intuited object from which it was originally obtained, he does not overlook however –for he develops them to some extent– those specific aspects of language that are particularly relevant to a theory of cognitive process as the one he´s trying to elaborate, namely, as a process of sublation of the object-subject duality. Hegel himself offers the fundamental keys for the correct understanding of the role of language in a system of absolute idealism; however, the strictly “systematic” and “non-systematic” dimensions of language often overlays or blurs in his presentation. The main systematic aspect of language in Hegel’s philosophy is, as we´ve tried to prove throughout this article, the cancellation of the empirical figure of the content of intuition and image through its implication in the ideal content of the meaning of a name, that is, from a different perspective, it´s the sublation of intuition and image as theoretical forms, and, correlatively, the cancellation of the abstract figure of the content of universal representation and, therefore, the concluding sublation of representation in general as theoretical form. Language so generates thought as a first undifferentiated unity of object and subject as well as it “unlocks” each known content so that the subject can henceforth by its own inner activity comprehend it in its objective constitution and necessity.