Summary
Johann Gottfried Herder: A Discourse on the Origin of Language
The work was created in response to a competition question set by the Berlin Academy in 1769 to settle the dispute caused by opposing theses on the divine and human origin of language. Herder completed the text in 1770, the work won an award and was published in 1772. The significance of Herder's thought about language lies primarily in the emergence of a new way of questioning and observing language. For Herder, language does not have an exclusively instrumental character (a tool that human reason uses for cognition), but is in a more intimate relationship with man. Language not only arises from human nature, but belongs to it as one of the most important moments of its structure. Language is "more than a tool: it is the container and content of literature", and provides "all human knowledge with boundaries and outline". Only in and through his own language is reality accessible to man as his own world.
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