Philosophy and language

Philosophy and language

• Three areas of philosophy relevant to the understanding of language– Epistemology or the theory of knowledge– The Philosophy of Language– Linguistic Philosophy

Epistemology

• How do we know?

• Why do we know?

• What do we know?

• What can we know?

• ‘Knowing that’

• ‘Knowing how’

• (Question: ‘know’ = ‘saber’ / ‘conhecer’ ?)

Main questions

• Is knowledge innate or acquired?– Are we somehow pre-destined to ‘know’

certain things?– How far do we acquire knowledge only from

experience?

• Rationalism v empiricism– Do we arrive at our view of the world through

reason alone?– Do we deduce all we know from experience?

Other questions

• What is perception?

• What is reason?

• What is reality?

• What is appearance?

• What is ‘our knowledge of the external world’?

Other questions

• How reliable is our perception of the external world?

• How do we solve the ‘other minds’ problem?• How far can we reach agreement on the nature of

what we perceive individually and collectively?• What part does language play in our

understanding of the world?

Other questions

• What is it to know something? • What is truth?• What counts as evidence for or against a particular

theory? • What is meant by a proof? • Or even, as the Greek Skeptics asked, is human

knowledge possible at all, or is human access to the world such that no knowledge and no certitude about it is possible?

Origins of knowledge

• Consider the notions of: – Ideas in mathematics– Innate v. Learned– Rationalism v. Empiricism– ‘Tabula rasa’– Skepticism

Notes on early Epistemology

• Sophists - sophistry• Socrates – ‘what is piety?’• Plato – Platonic ‘ideas’• Aristotle – passive intellect and active intellect• Skepticism - knowledge is impossible• St. Augustine – ideas and illumination• Medieval philosophy - "faith seeking reason"

‘Modern’ philosophy – 17 c.

• Faith/revelation and reason

• Impact of modern science on epistemology

• Descartes – intuition and deduction– “Cogito, ergo sum”– Innate ideas– Duality of mind and body

‘Modern’ philosophy – 18-19 c.

• The empiricists– Locke – ‘tabula rasa’– Berkeley – Hume

• Kant – the “transcendental idealist”

• Hegel – ‘all knowledge must be expressible in language’

Contemporary philosophy – 20c Continental philosophy

• Husserl – phenomenology• Heidegger – Being and Time• Merleau-Ponty – Phenomenology of Perception• Sartre - Being-in-itself (en soi) v being-for-itself

(pour soi) • Foucault - The Archaeology of Knowledge• Derrida - deconstruction • Dewey – experience = an interaction between a

living being and his environment

Contemporary philosophy- Analytic philosophy

• ‘The most distinctive feature of analytic philosophy is its emphasis upon the role that language plays in the creation and resolution of philosophical problems’

• Derived from:– Symbolic logic – British Empiricism

• Leading to:– Formal approach– Ordinary language approach

Anthropology, Sociology and Semantics

• Humboldt

• Boas

• Sapir

• Whorf

• Late Wittgenstein

• Bernstein

Psychology and Semantics

• Piaget – developmental psychology• Chomsky – Language and Mind• Jackendoff - Semantics and Cognition• Langacker – cognitive linguistics• Lakoff – Metaphors we live by and Women, Fire

and Dangerous Things• Penrose – The Emperor’s New Mind • Patricia Churchland - Neurophilosophy• Damásio – Descartes’ Error

Non-Vocal Communication & Semantics

• Sign

• Signal

• Icon

• Symbol

• Gestures – Kinesics

• Proxemics

• Pictures, diagrams etc

The Semantic triangle 1

Real world

‘Mental’ representation

Name

Language universals

Universals coming from innate ideas

- Part of our ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’

- ‘God’-given

- Part of our ‘mind’

• Genetically programmed part of the brain

• Holistic knowledge

Linguistic relativism

• Learning from experience of the world• Language as a social / cultural ‘contract’• Languages provide prisms through which we view

the world – therefore all languages provide a different possibility for understanding the world

• Different social groups filter the language differently

• Each individual has a unique vision of the world

The Semantic Triangle 2

‘Res’

Concept Word / term

‘Res’

• Variation of understanding due to:– Geographical differences– Cultural differences– Social differences– Educational differences– Individual differences

Concept

• ‘Objective’ conceptualisation – Concrete objects– Observable actions– Observable qualities of the world

• ‘Subjective’ conceptualisation– Abstract ideas– Mental processes– Subjective appreciation of the world

• REMEMBER: the distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ is fuzzy