Abstract

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy was a German legal historian who held that the study of speech was the key to understanding both human social interaction and purpose. This project examines the anti-philosophical foundations, the four-fold epistemology, the radical entelechy, and the moral point of view in Rosenstock-Huessy's "speech thought." While similar in his views on language to several phenomenologists, Rosenstock-Huessy is shown to have had a unique vision of the human being as a speaking animal caught in historical "times" of social invention. Rosenstock-Huessy is described as having special doctrines on names, imperatives, verbs, articulation, and formal speech. His work is linked to both the theologians of secularity and creation spirituality. Rosenstock-Huessy's moral thought places the teacher at the center of community formation and acknowledges an anthropological imperative to change by both decisive breaks and by the gradual accommodation of differences. A Rosentock-Huessy biography is appended