What is the problem with Language as a way of knowing?
I'd like some ideas. I'm thinking about the problems of Language as a way of knowing in comparison, to say...perception.
Thanks guys.
6 Answers
Philosophers who delight in (ab)use of the language often elevate language above everything else. However, language as a means of thinking or observation creates a lot of problems. Part of learning to draw or paint is learning to see what is there, rather than the language symbols--this is often expressed as turning off the left brain. There are similar problems with certain types of conceptual thinking in math and science where language gets in the way.
Another way of putting it: language is the map, not the territory.
Unfortunately, cognitive sciences seem to have some solid arguments to support the idea that our thinking is not just shaped by perception, but it is largely the result of this interaction with the medium through our senses from an evolutionaly point of view, and natural languages (not programming ones) are also the result of this adaptation. The grammar I'm writing uses a cognitive approach fundamente in this idea to explain complex concepts visually, and things seem to make more sense like this.
What a word means to you may well be different for me.
But we would both recognise a dead person if we saw one.
'Philosophers who delight in (ab)use of the language often elevate language above everything else. However, language as a means of thinking or observation creates a lot of problems. Part of learning to draw or paint is learning to see what is there, rather than the language symbols--this is often expressed as turning off the left brain. There are similar problems with certain types of conceptual thinking in math and science where language gets in the way.Another way of putting it: language is the map, not the territory.'
For some reason, I'm not permitted to comment or even vote, so I'd like to say thanks lorenzo....your point of view is interesting. And I like that: 'language is the map not the territory'.
'What a word means to you may well be different for me. But we would both recognise a dead person if we saw one.'
True.....thank you.
'Unfortunately, cognitive sciences seem to have some solid arguments to support the idea that our thinking is not just shaped by perception, but it is largely the result of this interaction with the medium through our senses from an evolutionaly point of view, and natural languages (not programming ones) are also the result of this adaptation. The grammar I'm writing uses a cognitive approach fundamente in this idea to explain complex concepts visually, and things seem to make more sense like this.'
You intrigue me....Language is there to communicate more complex ideas. Hmmmm....
There's simple and there's simplistic. Explaining complex concepts visually is a perceptual expression, not a cognitive one.
We should all beware when someone uses abstract nouns almost exclusively in place of the concrete. Here is George Orwell's translation into just that kind of English of a well known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
Would you say language is a way of knowing? Shirley it is a construct that allows us to communicate concepts. When crystallising thoughts and feelings we are restricted by our language and indeed the same thoughts and ideas will once translated into language for purposes of communication might have differences based on the language(s) understood by their author. I'd not think language fundamental to all knowledge, rather seeing is as key as well as potentially restrictive to the passing on of knowledge.
