David Vessey

In this paper I take up the question of the possible influence of J. G. Fichte on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s theory of language. I first argue that the historical record is unclear, but show that there is a deep philosophical difference between the two views and, as a result of this difference, we should conclude that the influence was small. Drawing on a distinction made by Michael Dummett, I show that Fichte understands language as encoding thought while Humboldt understands language as a medium of thought. The consequences of this difference affect a wide range of issues from their views on the nature of personal pronouns, to their theories of communicative understanding, to their theories of the proper nature of inquiry into language

The key difference between the history of ideas and the history of philosophy is that philosophers always consider their historical studies as potentially contributing to contemporary philosophical practice. Such presentism risks anachronistic readings of texts, but a too narrow focus on the historical context of the text risks limiting its ability to contribute to contemporary philosophizing. The current discussion of the history of philosophy focus entirely on how to understand, and what we can learn from, a philosopher’s claims and arguments. Hans-Georg Gadamer offers a different focus, arguing instead that it is the questions that the text answers that generate insights for contemporary philosophical practice. His focus on questions cuts across the standard ways of thinking about the relation between the history of philosophy and the history of ideas and provides novel answers to some central issues in the philosophy of history, for example how to best articulate a principle of charity.

The history of philosophical hermeneutics is one of expanding scope—moving from the interpretation of religious texts, to all texts, to understanding in the human sciences, to all understanding. As its scope expands it intersects with a wider range of philosophical traditions; only by making these intersections explicit can the key themes of philosophical hermeneutics come forward. I consider two central hermeneutic claims—that nature can be thought of as a text and that insights drawn from understanding texts illuminate all understanding. These ideas have roots in the Liber Naturae, especially in the writings of Hugh of St. Victor and of Robert Boyle. Understanding how they each see nature as a text enables us to clarify how Hans-Georg Gadamer must see it and draws our attention to his neglected phenomenology of reading