ABSTRACT
Johann Georg Hamann attempts to point out the epistemic basis of both designative and expressive signification, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing presents the self-annihilating nature of a language that succeeds in conveying meaning and in representing the entitlement of sensuous nature, while effacing its own actual, arbitrary constitution. Hamann asks the reader to think of the Socratic Memorabilia as a mutual action between readers and writer, poised to occur in the text. The Socratic Memorabilia draws material and motivation from ancient thought and early modern skepticism. Hamann's utilization of the concept of condescension is calculatedly epistemological. Hamann finds that only in Plato's work is Socrates, the character, successfully evoked. By emphasizing the Platonic construction of Socrates, Hamann says as much about expressive signification as he does about corrective designation. Hamann's translational model of meaning, to coin a phrase, relies upon this proto-Kantian understanding of subjective consciousness.
