ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to establish the importance of philosophical reflection on language for thinkers leading up to and contemporary with Kierkegaard. Whilst it cannot claim to be exhaustive, it will draw out themes and tendencies which recur in diverse brands of philosophy. On the one hand, there was from the Enlightenment a conviction that language introduced a split between immediate reality and representation of it through words and signs. On the other, there was a hope that a language could be found or made which would restore or elevate us to a more perfect comprehension of reality. For Heiberg, language had something of the same significance as it did for N. F. S. Grundtvig. Heiberg's conversion to Hegelianism in 1824 ensured the influence of speculative philosophy among the urban elite of Denmark, the very people who formed Kierkegaard's principal audience. Heiberg is committed to a view of language as both organic and rational.
