last thingsHans-Georg Gadamer (d. 2002), a German philosopher, indicates the
importance of living language and of human participation in it. Gadamer
rejects the sign theory of language because when humans see that words
are mere signs they rob words of their primordial power and make them
into mere instruments. Language and its words are an expression of situ-
ation and being. Because language is an encompassing phenomenon, it
cannot be grasped as a fact or fully objectified, which suggests that lan-
guage is a medium and not a tool. Language not only discloses the human
life-world, but it also makes it possible for humans to have a world.
Hence humans exist in language and thus belong to it.
The emphasis of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is dif-
ferent to that of Gadamer. Ricoeur refers to language as discourse, but he
shares with Gadamer an interest in how language is used and not with its
linguistic structure. For Ricoeur, language constitutes a world of its own
where items refer to each other, whereas discourse is the event of lan-
guage by which he means that someone is speaking, whose message
gives actuality to language. Because language pursues its own identity, it
is not simply something transitory. Language is characterized by predica-
tion, an indispensable factor of a sentence because it tells a person some-
thing about the subject by designating quality, class, relationship, and
action. Overall, discourse is comprehended as meaning actualized as an
event.Further reading: Gadamer (1975); Ricoeur (1976)LAST THINGS
This refers to what happens at the end of time, and is more technically
referred to as eschatology, a Greek term meaning the doctrine of last
things. It is especially prominent among the major monotheistic faiths:
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In the ancient Jewish tradition, eschatological speculation begins with
the Hebrew prophet Amos (8.2), who is the first prophetic figure to pro-
claim the end time is fast approaching. Later prophets expanded this type
of proclamation by including a time for a final judgment. The eschatol-
ogy of the Hebrew text is distinguished by its corporate nature, which
implies that Israel is the people – an elected community – of God, that
is destined to be restored at the end of time, a period both of judgment
and salvation. The judgment is a decision based on historical action,
while salvation represents a fulfillment or transfiguration of historical