The Inner Word in Gadamer's Hermeneutics

The Aquinas Section

chap ter 8  The Aquinas Section 260 s. 10, S. 425‒ ‒426 Weil die Lehre vom inneren Wort die theologische Ausdeutung der Trinität durch ihre Analogie tragen soll, kann uns die theologische Frage als solche hier nicht weiterhelfen. Wir müssen vielmehr die Sache befragen, was dieses “innere Wort” sein soll. Es kann nicht einfach der griechische Logos, das Gespräch, das die Seele mit sich selbst führt, sein. Vielmehr ist die bloße Tatsache, daß “logos” sowohl durch “ratio” als durch “verbum” wiedergegeben wird, ein Hinweis darauf, daß sich die Phänomenen der Sprache in der scholastischen Verarbeitung der griechischen Metaphysik stärker zur Geltung bringen wird, als bei den Griechen selbst der Fall war. par. 10, pp. 421‒ ‒422 Because the doctrine of the inner word is intended to support the theological exegesis of the Trinity by analogy, the theological question as such can help us no further here. We need to ask rather what this “inner word” could be. It cannot be simply the Greek logos, the conversation of the soul with itself. It has rather to do with the simple fact that “logos” is rendered both as “ratio” and as “verbum,” an indication that the phenomenon of language in the scholastic interpretation is brought more firmly into line with Greek metaphysics than by the Greeks themselves. That“the theological question as such can help us no further here”is a puzzling statement, not the least because Gadamer continues to return to the theology as an aid to comprehension in the remainder of the section, he has not been constrained up to this point from focusing on the ques- tion of language, and finally, he has already begun close consideration of the meaning of the inner word itself.But what he does do differently from this point is to broaden the discussion to take in and compare the Platonic, Stoic, and Neoplatonic theories of language in relation to the Christian concept.Gadamer is saying that he now has to get to the bottom of the relation between the inner word and thought itself in order to answer the questions he has just raised (par. 9). For this, he cannot invert Augustine’s analogy,but must see how the inner word stands up on its own.Aquinas is much more specific and systematic about the actual functioning of the inner word in the mind, which may be a reason Gadamer turns to him for closer analysis.1 And so I think he is not abandoning the depth of the mystery of language that is implied by its connection to the Trinity, but only the demonstrative force of the inverted analogy.And the truth of the matter is that Gadamer does not cease thinking of the similitude (see for example par. 16). It is central to his purpose. (par. 10, cont.) “. . .‘logos’ sowohl durch‘ratio’ als durch‘verbum’ wiedergegeben wird” [“logos” is rendered both as “ratio” and as “verbum”] The transition in this paragraph from Augustine to Aquinas is almost imperceptible, marked only by the reference to scholasticism rather than the Fathers in the last sentence. Just as Gadamer sees Plato and Aristotle cooperating in the same project and building one on the other, so he seems to regard Augustine and Aquinas. Although he notes differences, he sees a close continuity. In any case, there is hardly a transition. The issue is the cultural translation of logos from the pagan Greek to the theological Latin, and this translation is thematized, appropriately, in a gloss of Augustine by Aquinas in the Commentary on the Gospel of St. John. Aquinas has four questions about John’s decision to use Word in place of Son in the prologue, and the third of the four questions“is raised by Augustine in his book Eighty-three Questions; and it is this. In Greek, where we have ‘Word,’ they have ‘Logos’; now since ‘Logos’ signifies in Latin both‘notion’and‘word’[i.e., ratio et verbum], why did the translators render it as‘word’ and not‘notion,’ since a notion is something interior just as a word is?” (35).2 Aquinas answers that “word” contains both meanings, inner and outer:“I answer that‘notion’[ratio], properly speaking , names a conception of the mind precisely as in the mind, even if The Aquinas Section 261 through it nothing exterior comes to be; but ‘word’ signifies a reference to something exterior...