Augustinus: Der Markt der Geschwätzigkeit und der Sinn des Verstehens

Abstract

AbstractThe paper discusses the intellectual development of Augustinus by means of his discussion of the status, the sense, the function and his judgement on rhetoric. This discussion let Augustinus be an important station in the history of the philosophy of language. Starting point is the explanation of the dialectics of the topos (or pathos) of the ›ineffabilis‹. Augustinus shows that the antirhetoric meaning of the ineffable leads in selfcontradictions. Therefore he discusses the forms and the conditions of understanding. This begins with the early dialogue De magistro and reaches to De trinitate and one of the central subjects within this theoretical mainwork of Augustinus: the concept of the verbum intimum. With the (at first view) extreme reductionism in the theory of signs, presented in De magistro - a mental ›oracle‹ is claimed as instance and criterion of understanding -, he destructs the naive representation-belief in an 1:1-relation between outer signs and mental contents. The subject of the ›inner word‹ in De trinitate then is the question of understanding signs as signs. It is shown that only the explanation of the inner word as a mental achievement within ordinary language is sufficient to answer the question of understanding. An excursus elucidates that the sermocinalis scientia of Wilhelm v. Ockham in the 14th century continues the discoveries and philosophical innovations, Augustinus made at the end of antiquity. These discoveries are inalienable for present debates concerning the philosophy of language. And they are inalienable for concepts of rhetoric based in the hermeneutics of understanding. The critique of rhetoric as ›fair of talkativeness‹ brings up a purified sight of the art of language: of the art, language ›is‹.