Abstract:
Over the course of his career as a writer, Swiss intellectual Hugo Loetscher developed a
fragmentary body of ideas on the themes of language and identity respectively. In this
article, it is shown that these two themes may fruitfully be compared in five aspects. Firstly,
Loetscher conceives of both as being deficient and as mere potentialities. Furthermore, he
desires to experience the entirety of possibilities which being human could offer, with respect
to the dimensions of language and identity. These interactions with language and identity
subsequently leave him with unresolved issues, of which he thinks as a remainder. Lastly, his
conception of a gamut of partial identities as human possibilities is also central to a language
he wishes to invent. Although Loetscher’s ideas on these themes can only be extrapolated
from his literary writings or essayistic fragments, a systematic treatment of these ideas in
the context of philosophy of language reveals a unique and avant-garde way of thinking.
This discussion leads to the realisation that Loetscher purposefully and repeatedly employs
language and identity as synonymous with the possibilities of being human.
Description:
This article emanated from discussions regarding the MA
dissertation on ‘Die Immunitätsmetapher als kohäsionsstiftendes
Element in Hugo Loetschers “Der Immune”’ by W.G. (University
of Pretoria) (supervisor: S.M. [University of Pretoria]),
submitted and accepted cum laude in 2015. For this article,
W.G. wrote the line of argument with regards to the primary
sources
