Wilhelm von Humboldt s writings on language are a mixture of philosophical theorizing about mind and language on the one hand, and on the other hand, specialized studies of the most detailed sort of both the classical languages and languages which only in Humboldt s day were becoming known to European scholars, such as Sanskrit, Chinese, and native north and south American languages. This book endeavors to show that Humboldt s work on language is a coherent system of thought; to recapture and expose the systematic structure of assumption, hypothesis, argument and conclusion; and to assign many of the specific themes in his writing to a place within this structure.

Michael Forster presents a ground-breaking study of German philosophy of language in the nineteenth century, and its continuing significance. This book explores the lasting impact of J. G. Herder's work in the tradition, and traces his legacy in the philosophy of Friedrich Schlegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and G. W. F. Hegel.

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) is the progenitor of modern linguistics and the originator of the modern teaching and research university. However, his work has received remarkably little attention in the English-speaking world. Humboldt conceives language as the source of cognition as well as communication, both rooted in the possibility of human dialogue. In the same way, his idea of the university posits the free encounter between radically different personalities as the source of education for freedom. For Humboldt, both linguistic and intellectual communication are predicated firstly on dialogue between persons, which is the prerequisite for all intercultural understanding. Linking Humboldt's concept of dialogue to his idea of translation between languages, persons, and cultures, this book shows how Humboldt's thought is of great contemporary relevance. Humboldt shows a way beyond the false alternatives of "culturalism" (the demand that a plurality of cultural and faith-based traditions be recognized as sources of ethical and political legitimacy in the modern world) and "universalism" (the assertion of the primacy of a universal culture of human rights and the renewal of the European Enlightenment project). John Walker explains how Humboldt's work emerges from the intellectual conflicts of his time and yet directly addresses the concerns of our own post-secular and multicultural age.

Wilhelm von Humboldt's classic study of human language was first published in 1836, as a general introduction to his three-volume treatise on the Kawi language of Java. It is the final statement of his lifelong study of the nature of language, exploring its universal structures and its relation to mind and culture. Empirically wide-ranging - Humboldt goes far beyond the Indo-European family of languages - it remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclusions from comparative linguistics. This 1999 volume presents a translation by Peter Heath, together with an introduction by Michael Losonsky that places Humboldt's work in its historical context and discusses its relevance to contemporary work in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and psychology.

When Osip Mandelstam wrote that the Russian word was "sentient and breathing flesh," he voiced one of the most powerful themes in his culture. In The Word Made Self, Thomas Seifrid explores this Russian fascination with the power of the word as expressed in the work of philosophers, theologians, and artists of the Silver Age and early Soviet period. He shows that their diverse works (poems, novels, philosophical and religious tracts) share an attempt to articulate "a model of selfhood within the phenomenon of language." The thinkers included in this book—among them Pavel Florenskii, Roman Jakobson, Aleksei Losev, and Gustav Shpet—frequently responded to the work of contemporary European philosophers even as they drew upon and revitalized powerful elements of early Russian religious thought. On Seifrid's view, this highly original body of writing about language was the essential context for the development of Russian Futurism, Formalism, and the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and the Soviet structuralists—movements and ideas whose influence has extended far beyond Russia and long past their years of efflorescence. This book will have a lasting impact among readers who will be fascinated to discover the richness of this long-suppressed chapter in the history of Russian culture.

Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference.