Hegel and Words

I found Hegel’s discussion of language in “Sense-Certainty” very interesting. He says: “But language, as we see, is the more truthful; in it, we ourselves directly refute what we mean to say, and since the universal is the true (content) of sense-certainty, and language expresses this true (content) alone, it is just not possible for us ever to say, or express in words, a sensuous being that we mean” (60). As someone who loves words and language, I thought this interpretation of them was a little disheartening. We will never mean what we really want to mean when we say something. It seems impossible to Hegel to signify something that actually exists in rather abstract combinations of syllables that signify words, which, in turn, signify something probably less specific than we meant.

Then, I thought about proper names for people and places. In these cases, I feel like I couldn’t be referring to anything other than what I am actually referring to. For example, “Nashville” cannot be referring to anything other than this chunk of land set by boundaries and given this specific name. Sure, what lies within the boundaries is constantly changing, but the essence of “Nashville” as a place is unmistakable. The same goes for people’s names. While there are other people named Katie, there are no other people (at least as far as I know) named Katherine Marie Johantges. That word signifies specifically me. People would mean me when they say it, and nothing else.

So, I think what we discussed in class holds to be true: that words can be considered universals, and proper names can potentially be thought of as particulars.