BEYOND PURE REASON
Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures
UNIVERSITY SEMINARS
Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures
The University Seminars at Columbia University sponsor an annual series of lectures, with the support of the Leonard Hastings Schoff and Suzanne Levick Schoff Memorial Fund. A member of the Columbia faculty is invited to deliver before a general audience three lectures on a topic of his or her choosing. Columbia University Press publishes the lectures.
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Lesley A. Sharp, Bodies, Commodities, nd Technologies 2007
Robert Hanning, Serious Play: Desire and Authority in the Poetry ofOvid, Chaucer, and Ariosto 2010
BEYOND PURE REASON
Ferdinand de Saussures
Philosophy of Language and
Its Early Romantic Antecedents
BORIS GASPAROV
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E-ISBN 978-0-231-50445-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gasparov, B.
Beyond pure reason: Ferdinand de Saussures philosophy of language and its early romantic antecedents / Boris Gasparov.
p. cm.(Leonard Hastings Schoff memorial lectures)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-15780-3 (cloth: alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-50445-4 (e-book)
1. Saussure, Ferdinand de, 18571913. 2. LinguisticsPhilosophy. 3. LinguisticsHistory. 4. Structural linguisticsHistory. 5. Semiotics. I. Title.
P85.S18G38 2012
410.92dc23 2012003959
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The grammarian must become philosopher, and the philosopher grammarian.
Friedrich Schlegel, Athenaeum Fragmente, no. 92
This book grew out of the Leonard Schoff Memorial Lectures at Columbia University, which I delivered in the fall of 2006. I am immensely grateful to Columbia University Seminars and their director, Professor Robert Belknap, for having given me this tremendous opportunity to bring into focus ideas concerning Saussures heritage that I had been musing about for quite a while. To a large extent, this project emerged from many exciting discussions of various facets of early Romanticism in the framework of the University Seminar on Romanticism at Columbia, which Lydia Goehr and I co-chaired for a number of years.
The extensive library and documentary research involved in this project would not have been possible without the support I received from Columbia University, which granted me an academic leave in 20067, and Wissenschaftskolleg at Berlin, where I was a fellow in 200910. I wish to express my profound gratitude to these institutions for not only giving me an opportunity to complete my work but providing a stimulating and inspirational intellectual environment. Finally, I am grateful to several academic and public librariesColumbia Universitys Butler Library, the Library of Congress, the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris, and the Library of the University of Helsinki (Helsingin Yliopiston kirjasto)whose outstanding collections and excellent facilities proved to be instrumental for my studies.
Beyond the Schoff Memorial Lectures, I have had a number of stimulating opportunities to present parts of my study to various audiencesmost memorably, at the Universities of Stockholm, Oxford, Lausanne, Moscow (the State University for the Humanities), and Tomsk. The support and encouragement I received from my colleagues on those occasions has been vital in carrying this project through. No less important in this regard, the nascent program in general linguistics at Columbia, whose students vivid interest in the theoretical problems of linguistics and philosophy of language and determination to keep the spirit of theoretical linguistic exploration at Columbia alive, has been a constant source of energy and intellectual stimulus in my writing.
Amy Aires was very helpful in shaping an early version of the book. As for the final stage, I simply do not know how to express my gratitude to Nancy Workman for all the precision and intellectual empathy she has shown in her editing.
AB | Das allgemeine Bruillon. Novalis 1983:242479. |
AF | Athenaeum Fragmente. Schlegel et al. 1798. |
BS | Blutenstaub. Novalis 1981:412474. |
CFS | Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, vols. 160 (Genve: Socit genvoise de linguistique, 19412007). |
CLG | Course de linguistique gnrale. Saussure 1967a [1916]. |
ELG | crits de linguistique gnrale. Saussure 2002. |
FDA | Fragmente oder Denkaufgaben. Novalis 1981:564566. |
FNS | Freiberger naturwissenschaftliche Studien 1798/99. Novalis 1983:34205. |
FS | Fichte-Studien. Novalis 1981:104298. |
GL | Glauben und Liebe, oder Der Knig und die Knigin. Novalis 1981:485498. |
LF | Novalis, Logologische Fragmente. Novalis 1981:522534. |
PhL | Philosophische Lehrjahre. Schlegel 1963. |