Wilhelm von Humboldt

Prussian philologist, diplomat, and philosopher of language (1767-1835). Founder of the University of Berlin (now Humboldt-Universität); brother of the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. For the wiki, Humboldt's relevance is mediated: Merleau-Ponty reads Humboldt primarily through Kurt Goldstein's Language and Language Disturbances (1948), not directly. Robert's editorial note in *Le problème de la parole* (PbP [28v(40)] note 5) confirms: "Merleau-Ponty semble avoir peu lu Wilhelm von Humboldt. Il ne le cite le plus souvent qu'à partir de l'ouvrage de Kurt Goldstein."

The Humboldtian concept that does operate in MP's work is innere Sprachform — the "inner linguistic form" — which MP takes up but de-essentializes: there is no pre-linguistic Geist animating language from above. See innere-sprachform for the corpus-level concept.

Biography

Born in Potsdam in 1767. Studied at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and Göttingen. Worked as a Prussian diplomat in Rome, Vienna, and London. As Minister of Education for the Kingdom of Prussia, he founded the University of Berlin in 1810, designed the Gymnasium school system, and shaped the Humboldtian model of higher education (research and teaching unified). Retired from politics in 1819 and dedicated himself to comparative linguistics until his death in 1835.

His major linguistic work, Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (On the Diversity of Human Language Construction and Its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species), was published posthumously in 1836 in his Gesammelte Schriften. The work is the introduction to his much larger study of the Javanese Kavi language. French translation by Pierre Caussat (1974) as Introduction à l'œuvre sur le kavi et autres essais.

Role in argument

Humboldt operates in MP's work as the source of a vocabulary (innere Sprachform, energeia vs. ergon) but not as a fully endorsed philosophical position. MP's reading takes:

What is kept: the form/substance distinction. Each language is a form, not a substance. The form is a manner of articulating world, not a content of significations. This is taken up at PbP [28v(40)]: "Le langage à comprendre non comme somme de signes et somme de significations mais comme innere Sprachform."

The Humboldt citation MP repeats: "nicht bloss ein Austauschsmittel zu gegenseitigem Verständnis, sondern eine wahre Welt, welche der Geist sich und die Gegenstände durch die innere Arbeit seiner Kraft setzen muss" (Humboldt Introduction à l'œuvre sur le kavi, Caussat trans. p. 329, cited PbP [28v(40)] and [38(4)]). Language is "not merely a means of exchange for mutual understanding, but a true world that the spirit must institute between itself and the objects by the inner work of its energy."

What is rejected: the Sprachgeist read substantively. MP de-essentializes Humboldt: there is no pre-linguistic Geist that animates a passive linguistic material. Saussure's diacritical theory refutes this — meaning is generated by differences within the system, not by a spirit pouring meaning into the system. MP's innere Sprachform is the structural manner of articulation that is the active language.

Goldstein as mediator: PbP [28v(40)] note 5 makes this explicit. Goldstein's Language and Language Disturbances (1948) carries the innere Sprachform discussion that MP uses. The wiki's innere-sprachform page preserves this mediation: PbP's innere Sprachform is "Humboldt-via-Goldstein," not Humboldt direct.

Connections

  • source of the term innere-sprachform — the cardinal concept MP uses, mediated by Goldstein.
  • de-essentialized by MP — MP rejects Sprachgeist read substantively.
  • mediated by Kurt Goldstein — Goldstein's Language and Language Disturbances (1948) is MP's path to Humboldt.
  • contemporary of Hegel and other German Idealists; the innere Sprachform concept emerged in dialogue with German Romantic thought.

Sources

External:

  • Humboldt, W. von (1836) Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. In Gesammelte Schriften, Akademie-Ausgabe Band VII (1907).
  • Humboldt, W. von (1974) Introduction à l'œuvre sur le kavi et autres essais. Trans. Pierre Caussat. Paris: Seuil. — the French translation MP and his French commentators reference.