Externalization, Alienation, Language. On two levels of alienation in Hegel’s considerations on language.

The following contribution takes as its guiding thread Hegel’s striking attempt—found in the dense pages of the Phenomenology of Spirit devoted to self-alienating spirit—to think alienation (Entfremdung) together with language (Sprache) . Moreover, Hegel’s discourse on language within the analysis of Bildung (cultural formation), as the world of the self-alienated spirit, can be deployed to understand the intricate relationship between the two major fundamental operations of the self-negation of spirit, namely externalization (Entäußerung) and alienation, or estrangement (Entfremdung) . These two often overlap but should not be viewed as identical . Our analysis begins with the hypothesis that the difference between the two is articulated in language.