There exists a very particular grasp of the relation between language and objectivity in the work of G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831), one that rejects the idea of truth as the reflection between words and what they represent.

Jeffrey Reid’s Real Words is an examination of Hegel’s notion of scientific language (i.e. the language of his system) and its implications to a type of discourse that is itself true objectivity. Hegel sees scientific logos as real, actual, and true, where there is no distance between signifier and signified and where the word is the effective thing. The words of Hegel’s system are meant to be objective: they ‘take place’ in the world; they are not the arbitrary constructions of the individual philosopher. This concept of language is only possible through the idea of content, real words that actually embody the truth of nature, history, law, art and philosophy itself.

Real Words presents an original way of understanding one of the most important philosophers in the Western tradition.

Jeffrey Reid is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa.

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