ABSTRACT:
This paper attempts to examine Hegel's comprehension of language and evaluate its relation to some themes in contemporary philosophy. The main purpose consists in pointing out Hegel's attempt to account for the linguistic structure of experience. To begin with, I consider Hegel's comprehension of language in an epistemological context as an effort to ground intersubjective justification of objective validity. Then I discuss the relation between cognition and inferential metaphysics. Finally, after arguing that Hegel anticipates the tension between grammar and lexical historicity, I attempt to show how the connection between the ontological turn in hermeneutics and Hegel's idea of the "speculative sentence" leads to the experience of the unfinishedness of poetic meaning.
KEYWORDS:
language; epistemology; G.W.F. Hegel; pragmatics; hermeneutics