Discourse, Language and Totality (Hegel and Saussure)
Brafman, Jacques
Discourse, Language and Totality (Hegel and Saussure) - 2010.
13
Looking first at a few lines in the Foreword of ThePhenomenology of the Spirit or Hegel’s System of Science, that we will put in perspective with extracts and notes from Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, we would like to show that the following: 1. Philosophy is a written discourse or a sui-reflexive and/or systematic book, making it a meta-discourse. It also refers to the essence of language which never means anything other than itself. 2. Because it is based on this last concept, like it, the philosophical discourse-book leaves nothing outside itself and speaks about everything, or rather of the whole, and in this respect proves itself effectively universal. 3. Since all other discourse, scientific, moral, artistic, and religious take root there, there is then no need to wonder about a non-thought or a meaning which would escape the discursive. So the (philosophical) truth, as such, merges itself with the linguistic process with which it shares the premise - to be is to be said - and the conclusion – nothing has been said, as long as everything has not been said. Truth in some way forms a completed and/or coherent auto-reflection. Although pre-Hegelian philosophies explored it elaborately, it was up to the Hegelian System to draw from it all of the conclusions and to achieve what the others only hinted at. As for the philosophical system of Saussure’s language, it will technically reformulate its principles.
Discourse, Language and Totality (Hegel and Saussure) - 2010.
13
Looking first at a few lines in the Foreword of ThePhenomenology of the Spirit or Hegel’s System of Science, that we will put in perspective with extracts and notes from Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, we would like to show that the following: 1. Philosophy is a written discourse or a sui-reflexive and/or systematic book, making it a meta-discourse. It also refers to the essence of language which never means anything other than itself. 2. Because it is based on this last concept, like it, the philosophical discourse-book leaves nothing outside itself and speaks about everything, or rather of the whole, and in this respect proves itself effectively universal. 3. Since all other discourse, scientific, moral, artistic, and religious take root there, there is then no need to wonder about a non-thought or a meaning which would escape the discursive. So the (philosophical) truth, as such, merges itself with the linguistic process with which it shares the premise - to be is to be said - and the conclusion – nothing has been said, as long as everything has not been said. Truth in some way forms a completed and/or coherent auto-reflection. Although pre-Hegelian philosophies explored it elaborately, it was up to the Hegelian System to draw from it all of the conclusions and to achieve what the others only hinted at. As for the philosophical system of Saussure’s language, it will technically reformulate its principles.
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