DEUTUNGSHOHEIT

Deutungshoheit is a German word meaning "having the sovereignty over the definition of thought," sometimes also called "the prerogative of final explanation." The German philosophers Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel, for example, could easily promote 'The End of All Things' or 'The End of History' simply because they had written the history of all the world's people in German language, thus felt they owned world history. Seeing it this way, European dominance over the history of thought is a language trick. See two articles in Asia Times: Lost in translation I and Lost in translation II. [BACK TO MAIN]