¹ This text formed the basis of a lecture delivered as the conclusion of a series of lectures organised by the Royal Institute of Philosophy at London, between October 1997 and March 1998.

² Ch.Taylor, , ‘Theories of Meaning’ in Philosophical Papers, vol. I, ed. Ch. Taylor, (Cambridge, 1985) pp. 248–92.Google Scholar

³ On the influence of linguists such as J. Lohmann and L. Weisgerber on Heidegger, see Apel, K. O., ‘Der philosophische Wahrheitsbegriff als Voraussetzung einer inhaltlich orientierten Sprachwissenschaft,’ in Transformation der Philosophie, vol. I, ed. Apel, K. O. (Frankfurt, 1973), pp. 106–37Google Scholar

⁴ See my reply to Taylor, Charles in Kommunikatives Handeln, (eds) Honneth, A., Joas, H., (Frankfurt, 1986), pp. 328–37.Google Scholar

⁵ Apel, K. O., ‘Wittgenstein und Heidegger’, in Der Löwe spricht ⃛ und wir kbönnen ihn nicht, verstehen, (eds) McGuiness, B., Habermas, J. et al. , (Frankfurt, 1991), pp. 27–68.Google Scholar

⁶ W. v. Humboltd, ‘Über den Nationalcharakter der Sprachen’, in Werke, III, ed. A. Flitner and K. Giel, p. 77.

⁷ Humboldt, ‘Über den Einfluss des verschiedenen Charakters der Sprachen auf Literatur und Geistesbildung’, Werke, III, p. 26.

⁸ Humboldt, ‘Über die Verschiedenheiten der menschlichen Sprachbaus’, Werke, III, pp. 224f.

⁹ Ibid., p. 196.

¹⁰ Humboldt, , ‘Über den Nationalcharakter’, Werke, III, p. 68.Google Scholar

¹¹ Humboldt, , ‘Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlects’, Werke, III, p. 438.Google Scholar

¹² ‘Sprachcharakter und Literatur’, Werke, III, p. 30.Google Scholar

¹³ This is supposed to be true also for the representation of perceivable objects: ‘The expressions for sensual objects are equivalent insofar as the same object is thought of in all of them, but since they express the specific way of representing it, their meaning, too, diverges in this respect.’ Werke, III, p. 21.

¹⁴ For the following, see Lafont, C., Sprache und Welterschließung, (Frankfurt, 1994), Einleitung, pp 113–28.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Hamann, J. G., ‘Metakritik. Über den Purismus der Vernunft’ (1784), in Schriften zur Sprache, ed. Hamann, J. G. (Frankfurt 1967), p. 226.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Humboldt, , ‘Über das vergleichende Sprachstudium’, Werke, III, pp. 20f: ‘For what remains to be conquered is, essentially, always what is objective, and if man approaches it on the subjective path of a peculiar language, his second effort is to re-isolate what is subjective, if only by exchanging one linguistic subjectivity for another, and to re-abstract from it what is objective in as pure a state as possible’.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Werke, III, p. 81.

¹⁸ Humboldt, W. V., ‘Über das vergleichende Sprachstudium’, Werke, III, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Humboldt, , ‘Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus’, Werke, III, p. 156.Google Scholar

²⁰ This is why C. Lafont (1994), in her discussion of Heidegger, emphasises the problematic of reference.

²¹ Ibid., p. 201; also see Humboldt, ‘Über den Dualis’, Werke, III, p. 139: ‘Nor can language achieve reality by the efforts of the individual, it can do so only socially, only by a new attempt following the attempt that was hazarded. The world, therefore, must attain its essence and language its enlargement, in someone who is listening and responding.’

²² Ibid., pp. 138f.

²³ Humboldt, , ‘Über die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprachbaus’, Werke, III, pp. 147f.Google Scholar

²⁴ Habermas, J., Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Vol. I (Frankfurt, 1981) pp. 182–229.Google Scholar

²⁵ Humboldt, , Werke, III, pp. 202fGoogle Scholar

²⁶ Wittgenstein, L., Tractatus logico-philosophicus (London, 1974), pp. 40–42.Google Scholar

²⁷ Dummett, M., Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie (Frankfurt, 1988) chapter 4, pp. 32–44.Google Scholar

²⁸ Tractatus 5.4711.

²⁹ This is meant by Dummett when he claims that the philosophers of the Vienna Circle, in contrast to Frege and Wittgenstein, were not interested in a philosophy of language ‘for its own sake’, but because this ‘arsenal’ could furnish weapons ‘for their battle in other domains of philosophy’: Dummett, M., ’Ist analytische Philosophic systematisch?, Wahrheit, ed. Dummett, M. (Stuttgart, 1982), p. 195.Google Scholar

³⁰ Wittgenstein, , Philosophische Untersuchungen, vol. I, p. 356Google Scholar; see the interpretations of part II of the P. U. in Wittgenstein über die Seele, Savigny, E. v., Scholz, O. R., eds, (Frankfurt 1995).Google Scholar

³¹ Heidegger, M., Being and Time (Oxford, 1980), p. 194.Google Scholar

³² Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 61.

³³ Husserl, E., Erfahrung und Urteil (Hamburg, 1948)Google Scholar, §§6–10, §15ff.

³⁴ See C. Lafont, Sprache und Welterschliessung, first part.

³⁵ For Heidegger's critique of Humboldt, see C. Lafont, The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutics, (forthcoming), Chapter III.

³⁶ Heidegger, M., On the Way to Language (New York, 1982), pp. 126f.Google Scholar

³⁷ Wittgenstein, L., On Certainty (Oxford, 1974), p. 16 (para. 105)Google Scholar,

³⁸ Habermas, J., ‘Coping with contingencies’, Debating the State of Philosophy, eds. Niznik, J., Sanders, J. T. (eds) (Westport, 1996), pp. 1–24.Google Scholar

³⁹ Davidson, D., Wahrheit und Interpretation (Frankfurt, 1990).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Davidson, D., ‘Eine hübsche Unordnung von Epitaphen’ Die Wahrheit der Interpretation, ed. Picard, G.; and Schulte, J. (Frankfurt, 1990), pp. 203–227Google Scholar; for a critical comment, see Dummett, M., Ursprünge, pp 248–78Google Scholar

⁴¹ Rorty, R., Der Spiegel der Natur (Frankfurt, 1981), p. 287.Google Scholar

⁴² Brandom, R., Making it Explicit (Cambridge MA., 1994), p. 5Google Scholar: ‘We are the ones on whom reasons are binding, who are subject to the peculiar force of the better reason’.

⁴³ Apel, K. O., Die Idee der Sprache in der Tradition des Humanismus von Dante bis Vico (Bonn, 1963), p. 27.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid. p. 38.

⁴⁵ Dummett, M., ‘Language and Communication’, The Seas of Language, ed. Dummett, M. (Oxford, 1993), p. 182.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ K. O Apel, ‘Die Entfaltung der sprachanalytischen’ Philosophic und das Problem der “Geisteswissenschaften”, in Apel (1964), vol. II, pp. 28–95.

⁴⁷ Apel, K. O., ‘Wittgenstein und Heidegger’ (1962)Google Scholar, in Apel (1973), pp. 225–275.

⁴⁸ H. G. Gadamer, Washrheit und Methode, Tübingen 1960, Part Three

⁴⁹ K. O. Apel (1973), vol. I, p. 49.

⁵⁰ Apel (1973), vol. II, p. 352: ‘Die Möglichkeit einer Vorprägung des subjektiven Sinnverständnisses impliziert die umgekehrte Möglichkeit einer Umstrukturierung der semantischen Komponente lebender' Sprachen durch die pragmatisch erfolgreiche Sinnverständigung in der Ebene der Sprachverwendung.' Since I share and support this critique of the hypostization of world-disclosure from the very start, I disagree with the tenor of the second chapter of C. Lafont, The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutics. The problem of reference that we indeed neglected provides just one of those many objection that I actually have been putting foreward; cf. J. Habermas, Nach Metaphysisthes Denken, Ffu, 1988, 50ff., 55f., 103f., 175ff.; idem, Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne, Ffm. 1986, 240ff.

⁵¹ Martens, E. and Schnädelbach, H., Philosophie (Hamburg, 1985), p. 32.Google Scholar

⁵² Habermas, J., Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (1967), (Frankfurt, 1982), pp. 271–305Google Scholar. Apel, K. O. et al. , Hemeneutik und Ideologiekritik (Frankfurt, 1971)Google Scholar. Subsequent to the work, published at the same time, of von Wright, G. H., Explanation and Understanding (London, 1971)Google Scholar, the controversy was continued and extended to analytic contributions: Apel, K. O., Mannichen, J., Tuomela, R., eds., Neue Versuche über Erklären und Verstehen (Frankfurt, 1978)Google Scholar

⁵³ Apel, K. O., ‘Szientistik, Hermeneutik, Ideologiekritik’ (1968), in Apel (1973), vol. II, pp. 96–127Google Scholar; Habermas, J., Erkenntnis and Interesse (Frankfurt, 1968).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Habermas, J., ‘Nachwort’, Erkenntnis und Interesse, ed. Habermas, J. (Frankfurt, 1973), pp. 382–401.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Habermas, J., ‘Wahrheitstheorien’ (1972), in Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Habermas, J., (Frankfurt, 1983), pp. 127–83.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Apel, (1973), 333.

⁵⁷ K. O. Apel, ‘Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgesellschaft und die Grundlagen der Ethik’, in K. O. Apel (1973), vol. II. pp. 358–436; Apel, K. O., Diskurs und Verantwortung (Frankfurt, 1988).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Habermas, J., Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Frankfurt, 1981).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See my introduction to the new edition of Habermas, J., Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt, 1982), pp. 7–11.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Searle, J. R., Speech Acts (Cambridge, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Searle, J. R., Expression and Meaning (Cambridge 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a critique of Searle's intentionalism, see Apel, K. O., ‘Is Intentionality more than Linguist Meaning?’ in John Searle and his Critics, Lepore, E., von Gulick, R. eds, (Oxford, 1991), pp. 31–56Google Scholar; J. Habermas, ‘Comments on J. Searle: Meaning, Communication, and Representation’, pp. 17–30.

⁶¹ M. Dummett, ‘What is a Theory of Meaning? II,’ in Dummett (1993), pp. 34–93.

⁶² J. Habermas, vol. I (1983), pp. 369–452; vol. 2 (1983) pp. 182–205.

⁶³ M. Dummett, ‘Language and Truth’, in Dummett (1993), p. 142: ‘What we have been considering are two alternative ways of explaining the meanings of sentences of a language: in terms of how we establish them as true; and in terms of what is involved in accepting them as true … they are complementary in that both are needed to give an account of the practice of speaking the language.’

⁶⁴ See the theory of language of R. Brandom (1994), based on the complementary relation of inferential semantics and formal pragmatics.

⁶⁵ Habermas (1981), vol. 1, pp. 44–71.

⁶⁶ Habermas, J., ‘Rortys pragmatische Wende’, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie (1996) pp. 715–741.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ See the protest of Michael Dummett (1988), pp 7f.

⁶⁸ Wittgenstein, L., Vermischte Bemerkungen (Frankfurt, 1977).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Habermas, J., ‘Individuierung durch Vergesellschaftung’, in Nachmetaphysisches Denken, Habermas, J., (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 187.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Humboldt, W. v., Über die Verschiedenheiten des menschliechen Sprachbaus, Werke, vol. III, pp. 160f.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Habermas (1981), vol. 1, pp. 485–8.