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8 THE HORIZON OF DIALOGUE
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143 The horizon of dialogue Language is a uni-versal and by no means a completed whole. (LL 20/GW8 402) The conversation, that we are, [is] one that never ends. No word is the last word, just as no word is the first. (DD 96/GW10 140) Both speakers agreeing so fully that no foundation is required, is to converse without presuppositions. (LL 23/GW8 406) 1. The Forgetting of Language in the Western Tradition: Plato, Augustine, Humboldt When Gadamer wrote the last part of Truth and Method, language had not yet reached the leading role on the philosophical stage that it would later come to have. The “linguistic turn” of the twentieth century, the point at which the most varied of philosophical currents run together, had not yet occurred. These currents go from logical positivism to Wittgenstein, from american pragmatism to structuralism and psychoanalysis , from heidegger to the transcendental pragmatism of apel and habermas, from merleau-Ponty to derrida’s deconstruction. Philosophical hermeneutics contributes as well. But at that time even Gadamer could not imagine that his “turn”—the “ontological turn of hermeneutics guided by language”—would have corresponded to the “linguistic turn.” in a note to the last edition of Truth and Method he wrote: “i am not unaware that the ‘linguistic turn,’ of which i knew nothing in the early 50s, recognized the same thing” (TM 487/GW2 421; rPJ 41/GW2 4). how did the reflection on language manifest itself in Germany during the early sixties? Wittgenstein was virtually unknown. analytic philosophy, which had gradually gained the upper hand in north america, was associated with the positivism of the Vienna Circle and had been ostracized in Germany. in husserl’s phenomenology the role of language was secondary, and this perspective radically changed only with heidegger. Gadamer knew, for the most part, the essays linking language and poetry that heidegger had written since 1935, and certainly he found inspiration in them. nevertheless it should not be forgotten that On the Way to Language did not appear until 1959, when Truth and Method was already in print. Just as he did not mention heidegger in the sections on aesthetics in the book, the section on language does not mention him either.1 Still there are moments in the book when heidegger’s formula8 144 | Gadamer tions can be heard unmistakably, beginning with the Kehre or “turn,” which Gadamer instead refers to as the Wendung, or “turning.” Clearly he wants to distance himself from heidegger, who left hermeneutics behind in order to turn to the mystery of language . heidegger’s turn, for Gadamer, is a return to the early hermeneutics of Geworfenheit , or “thrownness.” Gadamer’s turning, by contrast, takes place on the terrain of philosophical hermeneutics.2 in German philosophy, language is, however, anything but an unexplored field. For the present context it suffices to mention ernst Cassirer, hans lipps, Johannes lohmann, Julius Stenzel, and above all richard hönigswald. These are names that Gadamer often mentions.3 They all point to the great tradition of the philosophy of language in Germany that is linked to hamann, herder, and, especially, Wilhelm von humboldt. Gadamer belongs to this tradition. nevertheless, the somewhat forced synthesis in part 3 of Truth and Method contains many elements that seem questionable and unsatisfactory. many of the theoretical arguments have a rudimentary character. it is therefore no coincidence that this third part, in contrast to the other two, has received comparatively little response. and it is also no coincidence that Gadamer, in subsequent decades, frequently returned to this part of the book, turning language into the guiding theme of the last phase of his philosophy. in Truth and Method a long discussion of language in the Western tradition occupies nearly half of part 3 (TM 405–438/GW1 409–460). Gadamer proceeds from the question: what happened to language in the history of philosophy? his firm answer is that language has been completely forgotten and repressed, so that one must speak of a “forgetting of language” (TM 418/GW1 422). if, for heidegger, the Western tradition is characterized by a forgetting of Being, then for Gadamer it stands under the sign of a forgetting of language. For both, Plato is the one primarily responsible. What does the “forgetting of language” mean? it means that the innermost link between language and thought has been severed. as a result, thinking appears independent of language, and language gets demoted to the status of a mere tool...