Language Thread

[quatona]

While I enjoy a lot of philosophical issues as entertaining but more or less irrelevant mind games, my recent conversations in the "attempt" and the "interaction" threads brought to my attention a problem that really concerns, almost scares me:
I realized that other persons have very different ideas than I do about language (How does it work? What can it do for us? What can it not do for us? What do we have to do for it to make it work?).
The scary part is that I seem to have taken my ideas about it for granted as long as I can think back, and I have never had the need to question them. I´m not exactly an expert, but I have studied quite some communication theories, and communication is not only a very important part of my job but also one of my main points of interest. None of the theories I am familiar with have caused me conflicts with my understanding, but suddenly I meet people like Growing Smaller and Tiberius who work from very different ideas.

So I want this to be the thread where everyone can share their most basic ideas about language.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

One of the philosophical controversies is what is the meaning of a term. People have said it is in the denotation, in the connotation etc. IIRC Wittgensteing said this was fueled by the miscinception that there must be a "meaning object" that we could discover. i.e. a object where the meaning was (e.g the meaning of the term "this cat" is the cat itself). On the contrary he said that we find the meaning of words in their usage.

I think this train of though takes us back to the days of Logical Positivism who gave a verification criterion of meaning. If a sentence could not be verified, it was semantically meaningless. However terms without verification (e.g. untrue sentences) still had meaning, for example "the sun is green" has a meaning even if it is false and therefore unverified.

In postmodern theory IIRC the idea that the author of a text has authority over the meaning of a text. Rather the author offers one interpretation which has no intrinsic privelage over any other. Another theme IIRC in PoMo theory is the radical instability of meaing. IIRC again another is the idea that truth serves purposes and is not to be accepted at face value. For instance Nazi "truths" about Jews served genocidal ends. In a similar vein all presentation of even apparently "neutral" truth is partisan and the power play may be exposed. For instance scientific truth may serve as a pretext for cultural subjugation of "backwards" people.

If you are looking for introductory reading in the philosophy of language IIRC Edinburgh Uni Press do an inexpensive A to Z.

 

[juvenissun]

While I enjoy a lot of philosophical issues as entertaining but more or less irrelevant mind games, my recent conversations in the "attempt" and the "interaction" threads brought to my attention a problem that really concerns, almost scares me:
I realized that other persons have very different ideas than I do about language (How does it work? What can it do for us? What can it not do for us? What do we have to do for it to make it work?).
The scary part is that I seem to have taken my ideas about it for granted as long as I can think back, and I have never had the need to question them. I´m not exactly an expert, but I have studied quite some communication theories, and communication is not only a very important part of my job but also one of my main points of interest. None of the theories I am familiar with have caused me conflicts with my understanding, but suddenly I meet people like Growing Smaller and Tiberius who work from very different ideas.

So I want this to be the thread where everyone can share their most basic ideas about language.

I have no idea about your scary. Have you learned any computer "language"? Is that strange enough to you? If you can understand a computer language, then I don't think any other language could be called strange. You just have to be careful and do not assume too many things that may not be defined for the processor. Otherwise, you will get "syntax error"

 

[quatona]

I have no idea about your scary. Have you learned any computer "language"? Is that strange enough to you? If you can understand a computer language, then I don't think any other language could be called strange. You just have to be careful and do not assume too many things that may not be defined for the processor. Otherwise, you will get "syntax error"

I didn´t say I found language scary or strange. I said I found it strange to find out how different other people´s ideas about language are.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I am doing a lot of agreeing with quatona lately. I hope that isn't too uncomfortable. (Actually, I may be presuming ... we'll see.)

The problem I have with conversations on, say, God doing the illogical is that those proposing that he can presume to be able to talk about it. If God can do the illogical, then the presumption that we can say anything about God is unwarranted. The Bible cannot be a trustworthy representation of who God is, because nothing prevent such a being from both keeping a promise and breaking it. Those texts that are revered as telling us of God become simultaneously true and false. Promises of reward are empty. So are promises of retribution.

All language dealing with such a being is useless. A sentence may convey a meaning to us who are bound by logic. But it cannot convey meaning about a being who can be both A and not-A simultaneously.

I have a similar issue with those that suppose that there are ways of knowing that don't involve cognition. The classic example is faith. You can ask a person what it is they know and they will tell you (language). You can ask how they know and they may attempt to explain it (language). When the explanations run dry (no words to explain, no language, no logic), the faith card is pulled. Now faith may or may not be legitimate thing or a legitimate way of knowing; that isn't my point. Rather, if one cannot form or find words to say what it is you believe or how you believe, can you justify believing at all?

Language, I think, and logic are inextricably tied. If we cannot communicate a thing, at minimum we should be suspicious that the thing is a thing at all. If we resort to the illogical, we are taking refuge in meaninglessness.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I didn´t say I found language scary or strange. I said I found it strange to find out how different other people´s ideas about language are.

Can you give examples, so that we can see where your are coming from?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

All language dealing with such a being is useless. A sentence may convey a meaning to us who are bound by logic. But it cannot convey meaning about a being who can be both A and not-A simultaneously.

Whats wrong with the category "meaningful, yet contradicoty statements"?

I mean to say "I wrote this and I did not write this" has a meaning, yet it is a contrdiction and therefore ought not be believed. If it did not have a meaning, how would we know it is contradictory (i.e. states different, mutually incompatible things) rather than simple incomprehensible gibberish like "thr shsyetrd shsisn w8wne" which states nothing at all in the English language?

We say that contradictions are false. That implies to me they have meaing. On the other hand gibberish is neither true nor false. It does not even reach the threshold of being truth apt. But I think to be truth apt (i.e. capable of being true or false, as contradictions are) there must be meaning.

If we resort to the illogical, we are taking refuge in meaninglessness.

See above. Maybe I have misunderstood, though?

 

[Tinker Grey]

Whats wrong with the category "meaningful, yet contradicoty statements"?

I mean to say "I wrote this and I did not write this" has a meaning, yet it is a contrdiction and therefore ought not be believed.

I would say that the sentence as a whole does not have meaning. The two individual clauses have meaning. However, when those clauses are used to make one sentence it lack any meaning?

I ask myself "What meaning does GS's sentence have?" I cannot answer. I can tell you what the clauses mean, but I cannot tell what the sentence means.

If it did not have a meaning, how would we know it is contradictory (i.e. states different, mutually incompatible things) rather than simple incomprehensible gibberish like "thr shsyetrd shsisn w8wne" which states nothing at all in the English language?

You don't recognize it as contradictory because the sentence has meaning. You recognize it as contradictory because the constituent parts contradict.

I know that a square circle is illogical not because the phrase means anything, but because I know what the constituent parts mean. Perhaps it is a failing on my part, but I cannot tell what the meaning of "square circle" is. It conveys no meaning to me.

We say that contradictions are false. That implies to me they have meaing.

I don't know that I say that except in a colloquial way.

On the other hand gibberish is neither true nor false. It does not even reach the threshold of being truth apt. But I think to be truth apt (i.e. capable of being true or false, as contradictions are) there must be meaning.

I would say that a sentence or phrase or clause made up of parts that do not go together are, like "square circle", gibberish.

 

[quatona]

I am doing a lot of agreeing with quatona lately. I hope that isn't too uncomfortable. (Actually, I may be presuming ... we'll see.)

No, you have summarized a lot of what I tried to communicate to Tiberius better than I could have said it.

 

[quatona]

I mean to say "I wrote this and I did not write this" has a meaning

Let´s say it has a meaning and it doesn´t have a meaning, then.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Perhaps it is a failing on my part, but I cannot tell what the meaning of "square circle" is. It conveys no meaning to me.

It means: An object that is both square and circular at the same time.

If I say relativity is true and then say that neutrinos can travel FTL, then I may be unwittingly contradicting myself. But that does not mean I have uttered a meaningless compound proposition. It rather means that the compund proposition has contradictory meaning.

Imagine I tell my wife I love only her, yet have an affair and tell my paramour I love only her. Now the two of them meet and relate what I have said. That does not entail all of a sudden what I have said, when considered as a whole, becomes semantically meaninglessss. Rather it implies I have lied and cheated.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

We say that contradictions are false. That implies to me they have meaing.

I don't know that I say that except in a colloquial way.

A "colloquial way"?

​

 

[GrowingSmaller]

The logician Emil Kierkegaard has argued contradictions are meaningful here.

 

[quatona]

Imagine I tell my wife I love only her, yet have an affair and tell my paramour I love only her. Now the two of them meet and relate what I have said. That does not entail all of a sudden what I have said, when considered as a whole, becomes semantically meaninglessss. Rather it implies I have lied and cheated.

Because the entire statement "I only love A and I only love B" is meaningless, and because we naturally assume that someone who employs language intends to communicate meaning, we conclude that at least one of the statements must have been a lie.

 

[quatona]

I mean to say "I wrote this and I did not write this" has a meaning

Which meaning would that be? That you are not you?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Because the entire statement "I only love A and I only love B" is meaningless, and because we naturally assume that someone who employs language intends to communicate meaning, we conclude that at least one of the statements must have been a lie.

How can we conclude anything about meaning (e.g. at least one is untrue) if there is no meaning there? How could you even understand (grasp cognitively) that I am lying?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Which meaning would that be? That you are not you?

What?

 

[quatona]

How can we conclude anything about meaning (e.g. at least one is untrue) if there is no meaning there?

Nobody said "there is no meaning there". Please read my posts more carefully.

How could you even understand (grasp cognitively) that I am lying?

I don´t know how to explain it better than I did:
When the totality of two statements (each of which is meaningful) is meaningless we conclude that at least one of the statements is false.

 

[quatona]

What?

Are you implying my statement wasn´t meaningful?

 

[juvenissun]

I am doing a lot of agreeing with quatona lately. I hope that isn't too uncomfortable. (Actually, I may be presuming ... we'll see.)

The problem I have with conversations on, say, God doing the illogical is that those proposing that he can presume to be able to talk about it. If God can do the illogical, then the presumption that we can say anything about God is unwarranted. The Bible cannot be a trustworthy representation of who God is, because nothing prevent such a being from both keeping a promise and breaking it. Those texts that are revered as telling us of God become simultaneously true and false. Promises of reward are empty. So are promises of retribution.

All language dealing with such a being is useless. A sentence may convey a meaning to us who are bound by logic. But it cannot convey meaning about a being who can be both A and not-A simultaneously.

I have a similar issue with those that suppose that there are ways of knowing that don't involve cognition. The classic example is faith. You can ask a person what it is they know and they will tell you (language). You can ask how they know and they may attempt to explain it (language). When the explanations run dry (no words to explain, no language, no logic), the faith card is pulled. Now faith may or may not be legitimate thing or a legitimate way of knowing; that isn't my point. Rather, if one cannot form or find words to say what it is you believe or how you believe, can you justify believing at all?

Language, I think, and logic are inextricably tied. If we cannot communicate a thing, at minimum we should be suspicious that the thing is a thing at all. If we resort to the illogical, we are taking refuge in meaninglessness.

God is beyond logic. This is one of the definitions of God.

We have to be logic. So if you stuck with that, God, of course could, sometimes, be meaningless. This is a very simply logic.

Logic can not give you God. But logic can give you many questions that have no answers. Hopefully, one can go beyond logic by thinking about those questions. Philosophically, it is a good thing.