Remarks on German Idealism, Humanism, and the Philosophical Function of Rhetoric

Author(s): Ernesto Grassi and John Michael Krois

Source: Philosophy & Rhetoric , 1986, Vol. 19, No. 2 (1986), pp. 125-133
Published by: Penn State University Press

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Remarks on German Idealism, Humanism, and the
Philosophical Function of Rhetoric

Ernesto Grassi

In a fragment that has corne to be called "The Earliest System-

Program of German Idealism," written in thè late 1790s, Hegel
says:

The philosopher must possess just as much aesthetic power as the

poet. Men without aesthetic sensé are our literal-minded philoso-
phers [unsere Buchstabenphilosophen]. . . . Hère it ought to be-
come clear what it really is that men lack, who understand no
ideas and who frankly enough admit that for them everything is
obscure as soon as it goes beyond the table of contents and the
index. Poetry gives a higher dignity, it becomes at the end again
what it was at the beginning - the teacher of humanity [Lehererin
der Menschheit]', because there is no philosophy, no history left,
the art [Dichtkunst] alone will survive all other sciences and
arts. . . . We must hâve a new mythology, but this mythology must
be in the service of ideas, it must be a mythology of Reason [Ver-
nunft]. . . . mythology must become philosophical . . . and phi-
losophy must become mythological, in order to make philosophers
sensible [sinnlich].1

This emphasis on mythology and poetry as the basis for phi-

losophy is uncharacteristic of what is traditionally thought to be
the position of German idealism. Is it possible to connect this
early view of Hegel with the humanistic tradition? By the hu-
manistic tradition I do not mean the neo-Platonism of Ficino or
Pico della Mirandola. I mean the problem of words, of meta-
phorical thought, and of the knowledge of the philosophical func-
tion of rhetorical thinking and speaking that was perfected as a
new way of philosophizing in the fifteenth Century.
I do not mean to interpret this fragment of Hegel's in historical
terms as it relates to writings of Novalis, Hölderlin, Schelling, or
the Schlegels. Hegel in his later works makes it clear that he did
not regard Renaissance rhetoric and the tradition of Italian hu-

Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1986. Published by The Pennsylvania
State University Press, University Park and London. Editorial Office: Depart-
ment of Philosophy, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322.

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126 ERNESTO GRASSI

manism as philosophically importan

connect this tradition historically with t
gel. My question is: What does the th
"The Earliest System-Program of Germ
conceived theoretically with regard to
tion, poetry, and mythology? If this
the perspective of thèse thèmes as
humanist tradition, does it give us a
standing a source of philosophy that
tional interprétation of philosophy as
In Western philosophy we hâve two c
tions whose radical différence has no
I wish to bring together thè speculative
tion (which has become the standard
under the following points:
(a) With Piato the chief problem of
rational détermination of the particular
lem of the "grounding" of reality, th
particular things, whether we are con
human being, a human act or attitude
reality, that is, the way a particular t
Platonic tradition falls back on ground
a définition (horismos), that is, a d
from any "time" or "place." Not only
the manifold of particulars is derived
thinking from a "first" original ex
"idea" as the basis of the définition o
standard for thought and the "a-histo
form of philosophical thought.
(b) Because the détermination of the
a rational process, rational speech is
form of scholarly and scientific expre
Poetry and rhetoric are thereby shut ou
istic thinking and, hence, from philos
claimed in the Middle Ages, for exa
cepted only if it is understood as velam
is hidden logicai truths. The veil, i.e.,
because it was thought that the intens
and in an unmitigated form would bli
has its justification only if it makes a
truth which stands above ail place and

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 PHILOSOPHICAL FUNCTION OF RHETORIC 127

Modern thought also shuts out poetry and rhetoric from ph

losophy. Descartes, Locke, and Kant all agrée on minimaliz
its value. Hegel provided the justification for this dégradation
his aesthetics when he condemned imagistic thinking as an inc
pacity of thinking to attain to the concept.
(c) Analytic philosophy has called attention to the fact that it
not possible to deduce "first" or "original" grounds. Hence, "sc
entific" philosophizing can hâve only a "formai" character; it
dépendent upon thè particular principles of thè System that a
chosen. Analytic philosophy rejects both metaphysics and "h
manistic" philosophy because each claims to be able to ma
justified pronouncements about the realization of existence. Th
is, they are not "formal" conceptions of philosophy.
There is a second, truly humanistic tradition in Weste
thought, which I hâve discussed in several works.2 It has bee
obscured by the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions in Renai
sance philosophy and differs from both in its basic theoretic
attitude. It develops not from the problem of existence (Seiend
but from the problem of thè word. The basic theoretical cont
of this true humanistic tradition agrées perfectly with the passag
in thè "Earliest System-Program of German Idealism" wh
claims that there is a fundamental function of poetic, metapho
cal thought and a speculative meaning of myth. This humanism
not what is sometimes erroneously given this name - the "hum
ism" of Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Diacetto, etc. Its représe
tatives are rather Mussato, Bruni, Poliziano, Guarino, Pontan
and Valla, all authors of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuri
This tradition was thought through in its fundamental signif
cance and given a new value by Giambattista Vico and was lat
important in the eighteenth Century in Vives and then in Grac
and Tesaurus, in their discussions of ingenium and ingenuity
Finally, the problems of this humanism were the topic of disc
sion in German Romanticism with Novalis and the Schlegels an
in England in Schaftesbury's Sensus communis, an Essay on Fr
dom of Wit and Humor and in Coleridge's Bibliographia literar
in the nineteenth Century.
I want to summarize hère thè basic problems which concerne
this genuine form of humanistic philosophizing.
(a) Humanistic thought begins with the problem of thè word
not with things or beings. Its concern is with language in its
primary sensé as a way to give meaning in a situation and

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 128 ERNESTO GRASSI

answer thè Claims made upon man. Man

must meet daims made upon him "her
manists realized this through their expé
translations and the interprétations of t
how the same word in the writings of on
spécifie meaning but receives a différent
of another author's works. In this way th
thè decisive insight that it is fundamental
the définition of words dépendent upon t
définition of things.
The purely rational définition of things,
time and place, not only ignores the mean
but misrepresents them as well, for the r
cannot be found in its abstraetness existin
crete things. It is therefore thè tradition
defining an a-historical meaning of a wo
expose things to us "here" and "now," bu
and indicative word. Such language serve
made upon us in the particular contexts
selves. This was Leonardo Bruni's basic thesis in his new transla-

tion of the Nicomachean Ethics, a principle which was diametri-

cally opposed to the purely rational medieval translations of this
work by Robert Grosseteste and William of Moerbeke, which
were based upon the theory of the rational définition of words.
Bruni's view was also shared by such writers as Poliziano and
Lorenzo Valla.

The traditional ancient and medieval attempts to define things

in a purely rational manner had grave results for the whole of
Western civilization. The rationally defined thing was something
that could be manipulated and so was subjeet to thè power of the
individuai and his will.
(b) The second essential thesis of fifteenth-century humanism
was that since man had to meet the Claims made upon him in
spécifie situations, the meaning-giving acts of directive language
and gesture which are the primary answers to these Claims cannot
be rationally deduced. Hence, the first and original form of lan-
guage is rhetorical. This is not the language of abstract matters
but speech directed to the essential concerns of existence, to
matters of life and death.

(c) The third essential thesis of the humanistic tradition also

dérives from the problem of language. The Claims that we re-

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 PHILOSOPHICAL FUNCTION OF RHETORIC 129

spond to in différent situations are fundamental and cannot be

inferred from any higher principles. Hence, they can be given no
foundation (un-begründbar); they hover, so to speak, over noth-
ing (Ab-grund). We are left hanging with nothing but what we
can speak of in the particular situation hère and now. This view is
developed in Erasmus's theory of folly, moria, or by Alberti in
Momus. Language in such a situation is essentially rhetorical, not
rational and deductive.

Rhetorical language is metaphorical and, hence, poetic. Meta-

phor, in accordance with the traditional définition given by Aristo-
tle in thè Poetics and Rhetoric, is thè transfer of meaning from one
word to another. For example, it is metaphorical when we speak of
Achilles as a lion or of youth as the springtime of life. The "meta-
pherin" of the meaning of a word which "properly" belongs to
another word cannot and may not occur arbitrarily. It présupposes
that thè relationship, thè "koinonia" or "similitudo" between the
terms is found (invenire). But this can occur only through "inge-
nium," through "noetic" activity, not through ratio. This point is
elaborated in Colluccio Salutati's De laboribus Herculis.
Vico gave the following définition of "ingenium": "The capac-
ity to know is ingenium, i.e., to be able to recognize similarities
and so to be able to create. . . . Accordingly, ingenium is neces-
sary for invention, for the work if the particular ingenium is the
invention of thè new." Vico adds that "ingenium and nature
mean the same thing for the Italians because human ingenium is
the same as the nature of man." Ingenious, metaphorical activity
plays the leading rôle in the process of exposing reality; it alone is
able, by means of the ingenious and imaginative (Vico defines
fantasia as the "eye of ingenium"), to provide new relationships,
i.e., to expose similarities in whose light man can "read" reality.
Hère I corne to the essential point concerning the "philosophi-
cal" and not merely "literary" character of metaphorical, poetic
thought and speech. The invention (inventio) of linguistic ways to
meet the claims made upon man dépend upon ingenious, not
rational, abstractive thinking. It is the former which disco vers
"relations" and "similarities." This means that metaphorical,
rhetorical, and poetic speech hâve a fundamental importance be-
cause man always lives, acts, and thinks in situations. These de-
mand ingenious thought and cannot be met by a mere rational
process of inference. This view was explicated in the fifteenth
Century by Mussato.

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130 ERNESTO GRASSI

Such primary metaphorical thought an

covery of commonality or similarity amo
commonality between that which draw
cerns us and that to which language ref
ing the situation. Every interprétation
which is not the interpreted thing itself
relationship to us. The things that con
phorical language and the world speak
We are now in a position to answer t
at the beginning: What is the relation
nistic" thèses of the fragment of the "
man Idealism" to analytic philosophy
fifteenth-century Italian humanism on
lytic philosophy must recognize that it
mit it to make any suggestions concern
existence, the humanistic thèses con
phorical, and rhetorical language all pr
sights into human expérience. The que
arise only in concrete situations. Henc
cussions typical of analytic philosophy
them because it ignores the concrete co
tion is more complex when we consider
fifteenth-century humanism and the i
man Romanticism. In his book on H
Donald Phillip Verene discusses the rol
the "inverted world" in an exemplar
thèse are philosophically important in
thèse points here in relationship to the
The proper meaning of a term for log
définition, turns out upon closer exam
proper. For rational définitions the sin
term is fixed, unchanging, and unpoeti
this kind of thinking is really an inverte
thought. The metaphor, insofar as it s
something eise, breaks the rules of rati
tional philosophical thinking around. T
far as it does not say what is defined
seems to be a topsy-turvy form of thinki
the strictly rational mind. This holds f
Italy and the Romantics in Germany.
Irony is coneeived as a rhetorical an

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 PHILOSOPHICAL FUNCTION OF RHETORIC 131

speaking because it turns around the "proper" meaning of things

as defined by rational speech, but its true function is to reveal
things as they are in the context of actual speech. In contrast to
the humorless platonizing humanists around Ficino, irony is im-
portant to such humanists as Erasmus, Alberti, Poliziano, and
Pontano.

This problem is found again in the Romantics in Germany - in

Novalis, Jean Paul, the Schlegels, and in Schelling's thesis of the
philosophical function of poetry. The Romantics' conception of
the "inverted world" and the way of thinking and speaking that
Tieck and Hegel refer to pro vide us, as Verene has shown, with
insight into thè speculative importance of irony and the joke.
This is the historical basis for comparing Humanism and German
Idealism.

Novalis says: "The joke is creative - it makes similarities."3

Friedrich Schlegel claims: "Wit, ars combinatoria, critic [and] the
basis of invention are one and the same."4 In another place he
points to the "inventive and simultaneously relating and combin-
ing function" of the joke.5 Schlegel's thesis that the joke and
memory are closely related recalls the définition given by Vico
and Gracian of the philosophical importance of ingenium. The
joke has thè power to show analogies and similarities in a frag-
mented world. "The joke appears unexpectedly and suddenly,
like a messenger or, rather, like a lightning boit from the uncon-
scious world."6 Because of this, Schlegel can claim that the
method of thè joke, unlike thè systematic procedure of under-
standing and reason, is "divinatory," a form of "ars inveniendi."7
The joke's "combinatory" capacity consists in the facility "to find
the similarities that otherwise are very independent, différent,
and separate and so combine in a unity the most manifold and
varied things."8
In his Berlin "Lectures on Beautiful Literature and Art" (1801)
Wilhelm Schlegel made the following pronouncement: "Mankind
seeks in and through poetry either an external hull for something
intellectual or we choose something external for something inner
which is invisible."9 Jean Paul's Vorschule zur Ästhetik (1804)
discusses the problem of the joke in connection with "Scharf-
sinn" (acuity, "acutezza" in Vico, "agudeza" in Gracian) and
with ("Tief sinn" (profundity), writing that "Wit [witz] 'finds' (in-
ventio) the similarities among great dissimilarities, even among
inappropriate amounts, whereas acuity [Scharfsinn] should find

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 132 ERNESTO GRASSI

dissimilarities among comparable élémen

sinn] complete agreement."10
I hâve discussed thèse matters in my b
(1979), where I refer to Hamann and He
University of Pittsburgh has discussed th
problem of symbolism. In Neubauer's w
German, we are rightly reminded that
transcendental Idealism"11 provided th
derstanding Schlegel's thesis about the
poetry.12
The foregoing theoretical discussions require that we emphasize
the primacy of the ingenious character of the joke, irony, and the
"inverted form of thought and speech" over the purely rational, and
they also show the need for research on the deeper historical affilia-
tion between humanistic thèses and German Idealism.
Directive signs, gestures, and sounds, including "being silent,"
all acquire their meaning in thè basic sphère of what concerns us.
Outside this sphère, where there are no Claims upon us, every-
thing is mum and indefinite, as in a primordial forest without a
Clearing, without a stage for history.
Existence becomes known to us only in the need for expres-
sion, i.e., in a situation. Hère, at the end of this discussion, I
must point out that I hâve given no documentation for my inter-
prétation of Humanism. For this the reader may turn to my
book, Heidegger and the Question of Renaissance Humanism}2
Munich
West Germany Translated by John Michael Krois

Notes

1. G. W. F. Hegel, "Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealis-

mus," Werke, 20 vols. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971), 1:234-36. Trans. Verene.
For a discussion of this fragment in the context of Hegel's philosophy, see Donald
Phillip Verene, Hegel's Recollection: Λ Study of Images in the Phenomenology of
Spirti (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 25-26.
2. Ernesto Grassi, Rhetoric as Philosophy (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1980); Heidegger and the Question of Humanism (Bing-
hamton: Center for Renaissance Studies, State University of New York, 1983);
and (with Maristella Loren) Philosophy and Rhetoric: The Theory of Folly
(Binghamton: Center for Renaissance Studies, State University of New York),
fortheomine.
3. Novalis, Schriften (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960), 3:410.
4. Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe (Munich: Thomas Verlag, 1958), 124.
5. Schlegel, 11:92.

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 PHILOSOPHICAL FUNCTION OF RHETORIC 133

6. Schlegel, 12:393.
7. Schlegel, 18:252.
8. Schlegel, 12:403.
9. A. W. Schlegel. (Kritische Schriften und Briefe (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,
1963), 2:82.
10. Jean Paul, Werke (Munich: Hanser Verlag, 1960), 5:171. Cf. thè whole of
the IX Program, "Über den Witz," 5:169-207.
11. F. W. J. Schelling, Sämmtliche Werke (Stuttgart and Augsburg: J.G.
Cotta, 1856) Abt. I, 3:620, 627.
12. J. Neubauer, Symbolismus und symbolische Logik, Humanistische Biblio-
thek (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1978), 215.
13. See above, n. 2.

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