The Immanent Word establishes that the philosophical study of language inaugurated in the 1759 works of Hamann and Lessing marks a paradigm shift in modern philosophy; it analyzes the transformation of that shift in works of Herder, Kant, Fichte, Novalis and Schlegel. It contends that recent studies of early linguistic philosophy obscure the most relevant commission of its thinkers, arguing against the theological appropriation of Hamann by John Milbank; against the ‘expressive’ appropriation of Hamann and Herder by Christina Lafont and Charles Taylor; and against Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy’s uncritical championing of Schlegel’s ideological position.