Table Of ContentGwen Griffith Dickson
Johann Georg Hamann's Relational Metacriticism
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Theologische Bibliothek
Topelmann
Herausgegeben von
0. Bayer · W Harle · H.-P. Muller
Band 67
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
1995
Gwen Griffith Dickson
Johann Georg Hamann's
Relational Metacriticism
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
1995
@ Printed on acid-free paper which falls
within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure
permanence and durability.
Library of Congrm Catalof,ing-in-PHblicatDioanta
Dickson, Gwen Griffith. 1961-
Johann Georg Hamann's relational metacriticism / Gwen
Griffith Dickson.
p. cm. - (fheologische Bibliothek Topelmann; 67. Bd.)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-014437-9
1. Hamann, Johann Georg, 1730-1788 - Hermeneutics.
2. Hermeneutics - History - 18th century. I. Hamann, Johann
Georg, 1730-1788, Selections. English. II. Title. III. Series.
82992.053 1995
193-dc20 95-8276
CIP
Die DeutSfheB ib/iothek- C/P-Einheitwifnahme
Dickson, Gwen Griffith:
Johann Georg Hamann's relational metacnnc1sm / Gwen Griffith
Dickson. - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1995
(fheologische Bibliothek Ti>pelmann ; Bd. 67)
ISBN 3-11-014437-9
NE:GT
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Copyright 1995 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin.
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For my family:
Each is at home in the heart of the Other.
FOREWORD
Attempts have been made since the 1950's to introduce Johann
Georg Hamann to the English-speaking world; and yet it still
seems true to introduce him as an obscure and neglected figure.
Every decade sees another general introduction or survey publish
ed, and occasionally a monograph on a particular aspect of his
thinking appears in English; but even his name is unfamiliar to
most English-speaking philosophers and theologians.
The present work is neither a general introduction nor a study
of a particular topic in his work. As it includes translations,
commentaries and analysis of some of his central works, I hope it
will be of interest on a general level and can serve as an
introduction to his work for those who have not yet made his close
acquaintance. In particular, however, its purpose is to suggest a
certain way oflooking at the underlying framework and tendencies
of his thinking. I have dubbed his stance 'relational metacriticism';
an unwieldy label, perhaps, but one which I hope will be found
useful and apt.
With a writer whose life and work are as inseparable as
Hamann's, it is difficult not to give a short account of his life. I
have resisted this temptation, apart from such information as is
necessary for the understanding of each essay. Readers are en
couraged to acquaint themselves with his biography, however, and
anglophones may consult the work of Ronald Gregor Smith, W. M.
Alexander, James O'Flaherty, or more recently and controversially,
Isaiah Berlin.
Instead, the first chapter concerns itself with a story of
Hamann's philosophical and theological context: the Enlighten
ment, and his ambivalent position within it.
The difficulties of Hamann's style ultimately mean that it begs
the question simply to refer to his essays or to cite a passage to
support an allegation; a claim that Hamann says or means some
thing must be argued for and supported by a thorough exegesis of
the passage in question. Hamann's evident delight in allusion (and
elusion), his preference for teasing suggestion over self
explanatory proposition, as well as the conscious and deliberate
disguises of meaning and intention all require not merely an
Foreword
Vlll
analysis of the essay in depth, but, more unusually, a paraphrase
of even the first, superficial layer of meaning and sense. Since,
however, my interest lies in doing rather more than simply giving
an account of the surface meaning of an essay (even if in some
cases this can itself be an original contribution to research in
Hamann), I have decided to approach this task in the following
manner: I have translated each essay and provided it with
translator's notes to explain the most superficial layer of
perplexities: circumlocutions, 'code' words and nicknames, literary,
philosophical, biblical, classical or other references, and other such
immediate barriers to understanding or problems of interpretation.
These are contained in the second volume. Secondly, each text is
dealt with in an 'Exposition', a linear exegesis of the essay to set
out a coherent account of its meaning or message. This is perhaps
best read in close comparison with the essay itself. Finally, the
piece is subjected to a section of 'Analysis', in which the ideas of
the work can be examined thematically, to explore and examine
what they say or signify on a deeper level. The biographical Sitz
im Leben of each essay is also given at the beginning of the
relevant chapter. These explorations form chapters 2 to 6. A final
chapter gathers the threads and takes the insights of 'relational
metacriticism' a little further.
I have selected essays which I believe contain the main elements
of Hamann's thinking on the philosophical issues that underlie
theology: Socratic Menwrabilia, Aesthetica in Nuce, the
'Herderschriften', and Metacritique of the Purism of Reason. I have
supplemented them, as a kind of scherzo movement, with Essay of
a Sibyl on Marriage; this essay fills in crucial insights for
philosophical and theological anthropology.
Grunder has argued that Hamann's life contained four great
periods of 'critique'; these four periods are the four acts of critique
embodied in the essays I have chosen, beginning with Socratic
Memorabilia. The deep personalism of Hamann's London
experience of crisis and conversion, and the opposition Berens
introduced between Enlightenment and faith, coupled with the
apparent failure of the young Kant to indicate an attractive
'enlightened' approach to Christianity led to the dissatisfactions
which erupt in SM in 1759. At this point the relational idea is just
beginning to take shape. While the first layer of its argument is a
Christian apologetic, its underlying philosophical convictions are
the insistence on philosophy's place in human life and experience
and the personal and relational character philosophy ought to
Foreword
have; buttressed by the presupposition of a theological, relational
hermeneutic: that history, life and philosophy can only be correctly
interpreted when viewed as the locus or embodiment of the
relationship between God and ourselves.
A£sthetica in Nuce stands out among the group of writings
published together as Crusades of a Philologian for reasons of
length, but also because of its subject-matter, ideas, and mode of
expression. AN is a new treatment of the relational hermeneutic
first adumbrated in SM and subsequently developed in the other
major texts to be studied; the focus now is less on history as the
mode of God's self-expression and communication to us, and more
on nature, creation, and the arts (primarily literature, chiefly
Scripture.) This entails a new philosophy of language, as well as a
hermeneutic and philology now consciously developed over against
Michaelis, which is not developed and presented systematically
but rather is indicated, or even flaunted, in oracular sayings and
obscure hints. In the deliberately rhapsodic and bombastic
utterances, however, is made clear an understanding of language
which overthrows its representing function and institutes lang
uage's other roles as primary: expression and communication. This
conception of language as primarily expressive and communicative
is then used theologically. The bond between humanity and God is
depicted even more intimately with brief explorations of the idea of
the creation of human beings in God's own image.
An essay by Hamann's dear friend and protege J. G. Herder
provoked an explosion of essays known collectively to Hamannians
as the 'Herderschriften'. The Berlin Academy's essay competition
on the origin of language and Herder's prize-winning response to it
occasioned a new and deeper exploration on Hamann's part into
what was becoming a dominant interest of his: the philosophy of
language. At the same time, the relationality of his thinking was
becoming ever clearer. The Enlightenment's approaches to
language Hamann now realizes are simply the corollary of the
Enlightenment epistemologies (and theologies) which he has
already decided to reject. Furthermore, he sees that these are
grounded in what for him is a deluded philosophical anthropology.
Linguistic philosophy, anthropology, epistemology and theology
are now all interconnected for Hamann and must therefore be
tackled together. The very separation of them (even notionally or
methodologically) is a symptom of the Enlightenment disease. For
Hamann, language, anthropology and epistemology are all united
in our relationship with God, the creative Word. Language perhaps
Foreword
X
is the symbol which brings them all to focus; as it is the
embodiment of what we are and what we can do and know. All of
these have their meaning in the context of our relationship to God,
both in our direct experiential relationship and in the relational
idea of the imago Dei.
Subsequent writings of Hamann's develop this approach in its
differing directions. Essay of a Sibyl on Marriage is a foray into the
realm of sexuality; to an extent, it represents an attempt to dis
mantle a mind-body dualism but more directly it is a vigorous
critique of the hypocritical piety - in fact, blasphemy, according to
Hamann's theology - of prudishness and sexual shame. The essay
is important for its contribution in a different arena to the thesis of
relationality, and so is included in the translations and given a
concise exposition and analysis in the thesis.
I have selected what is in fact an unfinished and unpublished
work as the most fruitful for examining the last phase of
Hamann's underlying approach to the problems of philosophy and
theology. Metacritique of the Purism of Reason is, as the title
indicates, Hamann's early reaction to Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason. Hamann remained dissatisfied with its limitations.
Nevertheless, it contains some final distillations of Hamann's
relational thinking on the area which had come to preoccupy him
the most: the relationship between cognition and language. In its
protest against the many binary oppositions and the structure of
Kant's approach, it permits Hamann to formulate his own
relational approach in contrast, and expound a version of the 'prin
ciple of the union of opposites'. In so doing, it allowed Hamann to
observe that the whole of his 'authorship' (as he liked to call it)
consisted principally in what he now called 'metacriticism': the
critique of 'critical philosophy' (if one takes this, as Hamann does,
to refer to philosophy from Descartes to Kant); the examination of
the fundamental presuppositions of philosophy and theology,
regarding the nature of humanity, the possibilities for human
knowledge, the place of language, the relationship of the human to
the divine.
Format of the translated essays
I have tried to lay out the pages of my translation to approximate
as closely as possible those of Nadler's edition of Hamann's works.
With Nadler's volume and page numbers given in the heading of
each page, and Nadler's line numbers given down the left margin,
it is hoped that this will facilitate comparison of the translation to
