The Philosophy of Spirit: Language, Culture, and Art in Johann Hamann and Johann von Herder
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- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2024
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In this episode of the Philosophy Hour of Literary Tales, we turn to the philosophy of spirit and life in the philosophies of Johann Hamann and Johann von Herder. In principle, we look at their philosophies of language and how it influences the understanding of artistic and cultural creativity and how art and culture constitute the spirit of life (Lebensgeist).
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is a writer, classicist, and historian. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous publications in the English-speaking world. He is the author of Finding Arcadia (2023), The Odyssey of Love (2021), and the Politics of Plato (2020); he has also contributed to The College Lecture Today (2019) and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters (2022).
Masterful presentation! Hamann’s ideas resonate with my own thoughts about language. Years ago I read Hayakowa’s Language in Thought and Action which planted a seed about language that’s flourished. I also remember Sartre discussing the difference between signs and symbols, another addition to my inner thought garden about language. And then there are the words that Shaw gives to Henry Higgins about the God given gift of language . Forgive an old grandparent for reminiscing about the early flowers of language in my thought history.
Nothing wrong with reminiscing, ideally, we are life-long learners until death!
Many thanks for keeping this figures alive
Brilliant lecture. Thanks for sharing
One of your best Paul, thanks. I just got through reading my first taste of Novalis in "Heinrich Von Ofterdingen". Naturally I would love to hear your thoughts about his work!
To put it simply, I am a fan of Novalis.
Favourite youtube channel, love your lectures
one of my favorite lectures yet, so inspiring the visions of hamann & herder. yet, where are the ascendant peoples of the world today? where are the cultures that are vibrant and flourishing? or are we even now able to see, within the agitation of globalized noise, and meaning being compressed thru ever smaller funnels. is the whirlpool of modernity overtaking our sense making, and we inside a blinding vacuum, as if generations passing through a black hole, bridging to stranger and hybridized human conceptualizations of culture and spirit.
To be honest, I've had these conversations with people. Art and culture is flourishing if people know where to look. The problem is it is flourishing in all the "unauthorized" places so no one is paying attention. More 16-18 year olds are learning Greek and Latin, reading Homer and Virgil, than at any moment in US history. But because this happens at non-public schools without government indoctrination, no one pays any attention. New journals and magazines, many of them I write for, prop up every day giving space to literary arts criticism, but since it is not the NYT, no one pays any attention. All the most engaging ideas, cultural renewal, and education is now happening outside the "mainstream." As far as I'm concerned, good.
7:53 very important part! It is this audiovisual logic that wins over analytical logic (the logic of reading).
hamann ii - going towards the thing in itself is admiral, although i'd agree with most that we can never get there. there is always a negotiation of the border between order (unnatural but useful) and chaos (natural but stressful). everything is a representation, a construction, therefore concepts are in that respect as real as anything. i believe that due to an individual's finite existence, people are always inclined to attribute finite limits in other things, even though they are not there. however, if we view ourselves as a fluid continuity, generation to generation, which in a literal sense we are (that unbroken chain), then reality becomes clearer. "one harmonious expression". unfortunately now in the u.s. we have an example of a 'peoples' with a common language but no common culture... except for the culture of consumption and empire. poetry, libraries, humanities - the first budget cuts under modern neorational economic orders; jobs, jobs, jobs,,, slaves, slaves, slaves. internets regulated, algorithms honed to hijack human desires, and each online separated into their own bubble of babel. aristotle and st. thomas aquinas - humans are visual and symbolic creatures. empires (nearly all hostile by definition) promote only one language,,, one dominion.
48:38 …then we have the culture of “community of contradiction”-the call to open up, to cut against one’s self generatively by seeking communion with other cultures as well.
it is complicated
Can you recommend some good books on Hamann and Herder? Thanks
For Hamann: Betz's After Enlightenment and Bayer's A Contemporary in Dissent. Those also have further references to Herder as well as other contemporaries such as Jacobi.
Do you have notes for this lecture? I could use them
These are roughly drawn from education essays of mine from my website: minervawisdom.com/2019/04/26/johann-hamann-poetry-language-and-human-nature/ & minervawisdom.com/2020/05/26/johann-gottfried-von-herders-philosophy-of-kultur/
Thank you! I’m writing a paper on Hamann and how he relates to music.
I watch these with Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in the background and pretend I am watching a modern Naked Ape video.
hamann - constrictive framework of mechanistic; a model, not a reality. rigid and unpassionate, which kills life's vitality. a prison, weber's iron cage; the bureaucracy
what is language? a deficient yet imperative instrument. language a sacred gift (for schopenhauer, music was the gift ... interested also in discussions such as by cormac mccarthy about how thoughts are much more ancient than language; language as only a recent, imperfect actor on the human stage). passions, symbols, images, metaphors, myths ... the first representations for people... poetry ... the sound, intonation, and emotion of the human voice. 'the archetypal', which later elicited by jung. law and economics stapled onto human social systems, broad and dogmatic, unnatural in that way. science is essential, but not to be confused with or be a stand-in for human social and cultural vicissitudes and ways of life. language is the imperfect basis of our relationships. words describe an image (later wittgenstenian picture theory). language is the mediation of thought.
herder - culture - konigsberg - clergyman --- organic holism, anti-imperialism (british & french), and cultural relativism and particularism (of state) --- arts, language, and creativity in human systems = joy
volk/family - lebensgeist (life force) - the history of germany's separation and reintegration (as such) and how that historical background impacts on their philosophical traditions.
anti-imperialism ... so what does one do with cultures that are created from imperialism (U.S., Brazil, Mexico....others)? or ones that are irrevocably (seemingly) adulterated by imperialism (India, China, etc.)? one can say the world is currently infected by the european colonial contagion. we're still dealing with the disease.
Mathew 4:4
herder ii - goes a bit haywire with his fright about mixing culture,,, little did he know human history is literally the mixing of cultures. like usual, it's about appreciating the past, present, and future and the delicate balance that entails. and frankly, some people are just born in the wrong culture. if the nation was then the evolutionary goal of the local/town treasures for herder, then in the 21st century and beyond we are challenged with how the national allegiances can be projected into a world friendly telos/shared humanity. and obviously regarding ancestors, we collectively share them all, as humans. but unfortunately lawyers and politicians and economists generally hate poetry; they are about material dominion nearly by definition. the 'economic animal' (aka, the colonizing animal) consumes
Did he? If culture's primary expression is language, mixing cultures means there are no cultures because cultures die and are replaced by the universal language of economic consumption. That's a proven fact through history that any critical thinker can see. Look at all the immigrants to America who have lost all connection to their old homelands and cultures except for those who have retained their language and, therefore, remain part of that culture. How can you be born into the wrong culture? You are born into a language that is uniquely and intimately yours.
@@PaulJosephKrause on one level cultures are real and to be appreciated, but on another level humans all have the same origins, and at one time in history 'germans' and their culture didn't even exist. so like usual, it's a fine line between tradition and change. i think overall humans are well to prioritize the arts, trades, and crafts and exalt these humanly interactive and expressive things... theatre, dance, music,,, any physical activity requiring techne'/'learning a craft' over living on a couch in a virtual world or doing blind material consumption/accumulation, etc. but yes, sometimes one may not be a good fit for one's culture if it's too narrow or eccentric in an opposing way the individual naturally is inclined to self-express. you mentioned herder being against mixing cultures, which i can appreciate in the sentiment, yet ultimately i think what is paramount is an appreciation for 'humane' cultural traditions vs. activities that lead to mechano-reductive-competitive extinguishing of souls and natural/eco resources.
The phrase "Ahead of its time@ is often used as a "really says nothing" cliche, but i find it really fitting in case of Hamann. His mind really was way way ahead of his time. Philosophy of language which became dominating school and inspired other influentional thinkers such as Wittgenstein, crisis of rationalism and soulless materialism. I think he is one of the few thinkers who really could be said was able to think long term and consider the consequences with astounding accuracy
It is impressive ... and of course as a student within the Anglo world (USA) I had never heard of him.