Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Herder und Kant zum Thema der Natur der Sprache

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to compare the concept of language in the philosophy of Herder and Kant. Kant insists on the dualism of thought and language - concepts, thoughts and ideas are ontologically preverbal. In this regard, the linguistic sign is just a connection medium that connects the idea with the object and guarantees the intersubjective communication. The linguistic signs are nothing of importance for objective knowledge. Kant knows that in any empirical language works an anonymous form of world interpretation and it precedes all philosophical reflection. This understanding of reality in everyday speech use „works” with sufficient precision, but it is impossible to deduce the whole system of categories from the analysis of language. According to Herder all knowledge is founded on the basis of sensory experience and subjected to historical development.All terms are shaped by sensual imagination, there are no pure categories that would not mediated by senses. The conclusion of its deliberations is the thesis: „no thought without language, no language without sensuality.” Man is a deficient being. He is not adapted to any environment, he has no specialized instincts and sensory organs, and in this sense he is world-open being. However, this unfavorable initial situation has a functional sense. The human deficites are compensated by the language that opens up an absent in the animal kingdom, almost unlimited perspective of the freedom.