A Philosophical Encounter with Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Scott Randall Paine

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9798385295944
  9798385295951
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385295968
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophers

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973) is an author that deserves a much wider readership in the twenty-first century. Not only historians and social scientists need his insights today, but even more those who love philosophy and yearn for ways of making it more relevant to all areas of human knowledge and culture. The grammar often used so thoughtlessly in day-to-day exchanges turns out to possess profundities and powers philosophers have not always appreciated. The present book was written by someone who found in this man's writing an altogether surprising and revolutionary recasting of his philosophical vision. The past and the future, the inner and the outer, all come together in a new understanding of the very purpose of the gift of speech--of what is said, of what is talked about, and of the stunning fact that humans, alone of all the creatures, are able to speak at all. Few have addressed this as well as did Rosenstock-Huessy, and this book proposes to invite his powerful pages into the greater conversation of the Western love of wisdom.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. What Philosophers Can Learn from “Speech Thinkers”
• Chapter 2. The Grammar Before and Beyond Our Grade-School Primers
• Chapter 3. Time over Space in the “Cross of Reality”
• Chapter 4. Speech: Evolved Monkey Chatter or Words Made Flesh?
• Chapter 5. The Kairoi of History
• Chapter 6. Jews and Christians Eye to Eye
• Chapter 7. The Already/Not-Yet of Christianity
• Epilogue
• Bibliography