Hamann: Writings on Philosophy and Language PDF
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CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY JOHANN GEORG HAMANN Writings on Philosophy and Language CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Serieseditors KARL AMERIKS ProfessorofPhilosophy,UniversityofNotreDame DESMOND M. CLARKE ProfessorofPhilosophy,UniversityCollegeCork ThemainobjectiveofCambridgeTextsintheHistoryofPhilosophyistoexpandtherange, varietyandqualityoftextsinthehistoryofphilosophywhichareavailableinEnglish. Theseriesincludestextsbyfamiliarnames(suchasDescartesandKant)andalsobyless well-knownauthors.Whereverpossible,textsarepublishedincompleteandunabridged form,andtranslationsarespeciallycommissionedfortheseries.Eachvolumecontainsa criticalintroductiontogetherwithaguidetofurtherreadingandanynecessaryglossaries andtextualapparatus.Thevolumesaredesignedforstudentuseatundergraduateand postgraduatelevelandwillbeofinterestnotonlytostudentsofphilosophy,butalsotoa wideraudienceofreadersinthehistoryofscience,thehistoryoftheologyandthehistory ofideas. Foralistoftitlespublishedintheseries,pleaseseeendofbook. JOHANN GEORG HAMANN Writings on Philosophy and Language TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY KENNETH HAYNES BrownUniversity CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB28RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521817417 © Cambridge University Press 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2007 ISBN-13 978-0-511-34192-2 eBook (MyiLibrary) ISBN-10 0-511-34192-X eBook (MyiLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-81741-7 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-81741-2 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Introduction pagex Chronology xxix Furtherreading xxxii Noteonthetext,translation,andannotation xxxvi Twodedications,fromSocraticMemorabilia() EssayonanAcademicQuestion() MiscellaneousNotesonWordOrderintheFrench Language() CloverleafofHellenisticLetters() AestheticainNuce() TheLastWillandTestamentoftheKnightofthe Rose-Cross() PhilologicalIdeasandDoubts(writtenin) TotheSolomonofPrussia(writtenin) NewApologyoftheLetterh() GolgothaandSheblimini!() v Contents MetacritiqueonthePurismofReason(writtenin) FromDisrobingandTransfiguration:AFlyingLettertoNobody, theWellKnown() Indexofbiblicalpassages Indexofnames vi Introduction Johann Georg Hamann (–) is prominent in the history of Ger- manliterature,beingknownaboveallforanidiosyncraticandsometimes bizarrestylethatwasintransigentlyatoddswiththeaestheticsofhistime andwhichfascinatedandsometimesinfluencedwritersofthenineteenth century.HeisoneofthemostinnovativefigureswithinLutherantheol- ogyandarguably“themostprofoundChristianthinkeroftheeighteenth century”; hisinsistenceonthehistoricaltruthoftheBibleledhimtoa radical rethinking of the nature of both history and truth. Finally, he is aphilosopherwhowrotepenetratingcriticismsofHerder,Jacobi,Kant, andMendelssohn;whogavephilosophicalattentiontolanguageinaway that, at times, seems strikingly modern; but whose own philosophical positionsandargumentsremainelusive. Hamann was a minor civil servant for most of his adult life, working inKo¨nigsbergaspartofthewidelyhatedtaxadministrationofFrederick theGreat.Heneverattainedanysortofsignificantprofessionalsuccess; friends had to intervene to prevent the sale of his library and to fund theeducationofhischildren.Ontheotherhand,hehadthefreedomof his failure inasmuch as he was not obliged to meet the expectations of anyparticularaudience.Heexercisedhisfreedominseveralrespects:to developarebarbativeandenigmaticstyle,torejectbasicassumptionsof hiscontemporaries,andtorangefreelyacrossdisciplines. Hamann,however,wasnotmerelymovingacrossdisciplinesbutfind- ing his deepest themes reiterated in a variety of material: ancient and Hendrik Kraemer, as quoted by James C. O’Flaherty, “Some Major Emphases of Hamann’s Theology,”HarvardTheologicalReview:(January),. vii Introduction contemporary; sacred and secular; historical, political, economic, theo- logical,literary,andjournalistic;andinawiderangeoflanguages.Some ofhismostprofoundwritingwascomposedattheintersectionofphilol- ogy, theology, and philosophy. Often he has been considered from only one of those perspectives, which is not only inadequate but also ironic insofarashisownemphasiswasonunity.Thepowerfulcriticismwhich Hamannmadeinoppositiontohisagewasatoncestylistic,theological, andphilosophical. Hamannandliterarystyle Hamann formed his style after experiencing a religious crisis. In , while working for a firm run by the family of a friend, he went on a businesstriptoEngland,wherehewasnotsuccessful,eitherprofession- ally or personally. After some months he began to despair of the life he was leading; this led to a religious crisis in which he recovered and radicalized the Christian faith of his childhood. When he returned to Ko¨nigsberg, his friends Kant and Johann Christoph Berens sought to redirect him toward his previous, more secular and Enlightened, orien- tation, suggesting that he translate articles from the Encyclope´die. After an initial effort, Hamann gave up and began his own writing career in earnest.ThestylehecultivatedwastheoppositeofthatoftheEncyclope´die, obscure rather than perspicuous, personal and even private rather than disembodiedandanonymous,eruditeandsometimesobsceneratherthan politeandcomplaisant.Thestylewasareproachtothelanguageusedby Enlightenmentwriters;itwasacritiqueoftheirlanguagebymeansofhis language. For example, the first dedication of Socratic Memorabilia () is addressed to the “public,” but it is far from ingratiating itself with a potential audience; rather, it presents the public as a phantom and an idol,afraudperpetuatedbytheculturedeliteandnodifferentfromthe fraudattemptedbytheprophetsofBaalorthepriestsofBel.Throughout his career, Hamann had an extraordinary sensitivity to the keywords of his age – like “public” – which he found evasive, obsequious, and self- contradictory. The word “public” seems to imply the existence of such an entity, but who is the public, and how do the many voices of people becomethesinglevoiceofthepublic?Afterparodyingaflatteringappeal viii Introduction tothisputativepublic, whichconcludeswithascatologicalclassicalallu- sion, Hamann adds a second dedication to two friends. From this book onwards,hisstylemakesuseofparody,localreferents,biblicalquotations, obscenity, and wide-ranging allusions. The style is not polite; Hamann writesthatitisnotmadefortaste. Hamann’sparodyismotivatedbyadesiretorefuseclaimsimplicitin otherwaysofwriting.Heisneverhappierthanwhenusingittoshow,or imply, that a reasonable position set out in a reasonable style is actually a fanatical and mystical one – where all three adjectives, “reasonable,” “fanatical,”and“mystical,”werestronglychargedkeywordsofthetime. InthededicationtoSocraticMemorabilia,faithinapublicisequatedto faith in Baal. When Hamann began, in the last part of his life, to write aboutphilosophicaltextsdirectly,heappliedananalogousskepticismto philosophicalterms.Theterm“metaphysics,”forexample,isalinguistic accidentthathasinfectedthewholestudy. Aprepositionwhichshould indicate, empirically and spatially, the standard position within his cor- pus of one book of Aristotle’s relative to his Physics has come to mean, abstractly and transcendentally, that something goes “beyond” physics andissometimesallegedtosecurethevalidmeaningofthemerelyphys- ical.ForHamannthis“beyond,”likethe“public,”hasbecomeanobject ofsuperstitiousvenerationdisguisedasreasonableness. Kant, for example, in the Critique of Pure Reason, refers to a “tran- scendental object,” which he glosses as “a something = , of which we know,andwiththepresentconstitutionofourunderstandingcanknow, nothingwhatsoever.”InhisMetacritiqueonthePurismofReason(), Hamann responds to Kant’s claim by presenting this equation as every bitasmysticalandsuperstitiousasthescholasticphilosophycondemned bythephilosopheHelve´tius(seep.below): Moresophisticateddiscussionsofpublicdiscoursehadtowaittwentyyears;seetheessaysbyKlein, Bahrdt,Moser,andFichteonthepublicuseofreasoncollectedinJamesSchmidt,ed.,Whatis Enlightenment?:Eighteenth-CenturyAnswersandTwentieth-CenturyQuestions(Berkeley,CA,), aswellasthemorefamousessaysbyKant(onwhichseeespeciallyOnoraO’Neill,“ThePublic UseofReason,”ConstructionsofReason(Cambridge,),–).Parodiesofdedicationstothe publiccontinuedintothenineteenthcentury;cf.thededicationtoE.T.A.Hoffmann’sLifeand OpinionsoftheTomcatMurr(). “Thehereditarydefectandleprosyofambiguityadherestotheveryname‘metaphysics’...the birthmarkofitsnamespreadsfromitsbrowtothebowelsofthewholescience”(p.). ix
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