Hegel’s ‘foreign language’ critique targets jargon, not national tongues

Evidence

Yet we must notice that by ‘foreign language’ Hegel means, in this particular case, foreign philosophical language. Above all, what he has in mind is the traditional philosophical terminology, that formal and technical language made up of artificial terms borrowed from ancient languages: ‘transcendental’, ‘noumenal’, ‘ectype’, ‘archetype’, and so on. A distinctively philosophical language would claim to be free of all equivocity, the flaw that afflicts ordinary language. Technical language seems on the face of it to be perfect in its univocity and, in this sense, universally intelligible. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1152

Yet we must notice that by ‘foreign language’ Hegel means, in this particular case, foreign philosophical language. Above all, what he has in mind is the traditional philosophical terminology, that formal and technical language made up of artificial terms borrowed from ancient languages: ‘transcendental’, ‘noumenal’, ‘ectype’, ‘archetype’, and so on. A distinctively philosophical language would claim to be free of all equivocity, the flaw that afflicts ordinary language. Technical language seems on the face of it to be perfect in its univocity and, in this sense, universally intelligible. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1152

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does treating technical jargon as the true ‘foreign language’ prefigure later philosophy-of-science critiques of technical vocabulary as estranging? Worth tracing.
• XREF: Hegel’s rejection of univocal technical jargon as foreign echoes Wittgenstein’s ‘language goes on holiday’ and ordinary-language philosophy’s suspicion of formal terminology. — connects to: Hegel rejects ready-made philosophical idioms to preserve language’s alien character, not national purity. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1153; Hegel held that philosophy needs no special terminology beyond the philosopher’s native idiom — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1136
• DEFINE: Disambiguates what Hegel actually means by ‘foreign language’ to head off a misreading of his German-language chauvinism.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1152

Broader Connections

• Hegel rejects ready-made philosophical idioms to preserve language’s alien character, not national purity. #expands (0.90) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1153