Towards a pragmatic semantics: Dialogue and representation in Friedrich Schlegel and Schleiermacher

The purpose of this article is to justify how the philosophy of German Romanticism could still inform what is at stake in our conception of truth, representation and dialogue. Dialogue in Schlegel and Schleiermacher relies less on a supposed representation of truth, than on a conflict of representations in which truth is approximated. Dialogue concerns not only the communication of truth. It is the space in which truth is constructed. The semantics of German Romanticism does not refer to a defining relation between subject and object — as it is the case in the traditional concept of truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus. It depends on the dialogue between subjects. We are also led to a pragmatical conception of truth.