Heidegger's Path to Language

With the recent publication of works from Heidegger’s Collected Edition, it has become evident that language occupied a central place in his thought “from early on,” as he claimed in his later years.  Heidegger’s Path to Language takes on the timely task of guiding us through the development of his reflections on language from his younger years as a doctoral student to the later period of being-historical thinking.  Wanda Torres Gregory argues that Heidegger continually pursued the question concerning the essence of language in what he later called his “background” discussions.  She proposes that the clue lies in his often-implicit use of Aristotle’s definition of logos in terms of apophansis, synthesis, and phone as the guideword for his thoughts on language.  Torres Gregory uncovers three different stages of this buried path of logos that she correlates with his key philosophical principles at each step: the ideal of a pure logic, the existential analytic in the project of fundamental ontology, and the meditations on the appropriating-event.  Her analysis of the constants and changes in Heidegger’s way to language via logos continues with a systematic comparison of his different answers to age-old philosophical problems concerning how language relates to reality, thought, meaning, and truth.  Torres Gregory concludes with a critique that unveils the later Heidegger’s dogmas and inconsistencies and challenges his concept of the mysterious language of Er-eignis with an alternative (bio-linguistic) model of its appropriating force.   Heidegger’s Path to Language contributes to the scholarship in Heidegger, continental philosophy, philosophy of language, comparative literature, German studies, and linguistics. It is intended primarily for specialists in those fields and will thus be of interest mainly to college professors and graduate students.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Question Concerning Language Part One: Steps in the Path of Logos Chapter One: Interpreting Logos Chapter Two: The Pure Logos: 1912-1916 Chapter Three: The Living Logos: 1919-1933 Chapter Four: The Appropriating Logos: 1934-1972 Part Two: Constants and Changes of Language as Phone Chapter Five: Means and Realms Chapter Six: Linguistic Structures Chapter Seven: Semantics Chapter Eight: Truth and Language Conclusion: Problems Underway to the Essence of Language The Problem of Wesen The Problem of Sprache Toward an Alternative Model of Sprache

About the Author :
Wanda Torres Gregory is professor and chair of philosophy at Simmons College.

Review :
In evaluating Torres Gregory's lucidly written study, there is much to commend... Perhaps the most important virtue of the book is its ability to express Heidegger's self-consciously "reticent" thinking of language in a remarkably clear and coherent schema, helping to make Heidegger's challenging views on language accessible to a more mainstream analytic audience... At the same time, she introduces a number of interpretive theses regarding this development of Heidegger's thinking of language that are both novel and convincing (e.g. the tri-fold interpretive lens of the logos). Wanda Torres Gregory’s Heidegger’s Path to Languageis perhaps the most comprehensive view of Heidegger’s philosophical treatment of language yet available in English. This study by Wanda Torres Gregory will be essential reading for anyone interested in the issue that stands very much at the center of Heidegger’s question of being: the question of language. Wanda Torres Gregory provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the development of Heidegger’s understanding of language from early to late, with particular emphasis on his interpretations of logos in Aristotle. The book concludes with a provocative critique of certain tendencies in Heidegger’s views on language, while suggesting the possibility of a productive dialogue between Heidegger’s views and recent developments in contemporary evolutionary biology and neuroscience. This book will be sure to generate much debate and excitement among Heidegger scholars.