The Linguistic Reality of Philosophy
This chapter discusses Hans Blumenberg's very first philosophical publication, “The Linguistic Reality of Philosophy.” In this publication, he hints at the question of how history manifests itself in language and how these manifestations allow an inference to past realities. The philosophical reality of language shatters and transgresses the terminology not only of everyday life but also of that with which the scholar is intimately familiar. To this one has to add an aspect that causes frustration, and indeed fundamental concern, in anyone familiar with the complex terminology of the natural sciences: that philosophy as a science appears to possess nothing resembling a uniform terminology and by that fact alone largely stands out against the other spheres of the exact analysis of reality. Even where the consistent use of concepts seems to suggest such uniformity, a closer look soon reveals contradictions and differentiations of meaning. Language as articulation of thought appears to have two basic possibilities at its disposal: one monological and the other dialogical.