ABSTRACT
The dynamics of historical understanding is particularly clear if we consider the role of language in it, since it is language that makes it possible to turn the potentiality of the unexpected events pertaining to the historical becoming into the actuality of reason. For this reason, the Hegelian approach is analysed with reference to the philosophies of language of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricœur, and Paolo Virno. The way discursive practices may contribute to the rise of a political power based on a philosophy of history is further clarified by taking into consideration a pre-modern institution, the katechon, which both in ancient Greece and in the Christian theology was meant to preserve the established order by restraining chaos, be it the unrest within the multitude or the definitive rise of the Antichrist. Exactly because of the latency of chaos, the katechon implies a constant oscillation between stabilisation and change, and the role of language in the philosophy of history may be understood in this sense.
