Magi of the north: The thought of Johann Georg Hamann (1730--1788) in Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy (1888--1973)

The critique of the Enlightenment is a pronounced feature in postmodernism, irrationalism. existentialism, romanticism, and other intellectual movements. These century-long assessments, especially those dealing with Kant and the German Enlightenment, often find their origin in the obscure and parodic work of the Prussian savant Johann Georg Hamann. Yet while each movement has traced some of its similarities to this obscure friend of Kant. none of them is fully shaped by his thinking. This research will outline Hamann's peculiar work and trace it through those who admired (though distanced themselves from) him. Finally it will move to the work of German-American professor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and his recovery of Hamann in three areas: (1) The similarity of their "impure-thinking" and critique of what Rousseau called an "absolute hearing-oneself-speak"; (2) The similarity of their dialogical principle in social thinking and their dismissal of the modern ego; (3) And the similarity of their "speech-thinking" as a methodology.