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Language and Philosophy Some Suggestions for an Empirical Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

A. H. Basson  and
D. J. O'Connor
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Extract

Preoccupation with language is a notable feature of modern philosophy. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the influence of language on thought, and particularly its influence on philosophical thought, is a leading topic of philosophical discussion in this century. Every philosopher of any note, no matter what his general interests may be, has found it necessary to define his attitude to this problem. The attitude usually adopted consists of an admission that language does have a great influence on thought, and on philosophical thought in particular. More accurately, it is claimed that the structure and grammatical categories, and perhaps the vocabulary, natural to a particular language, determine the lines of thought and speculation open to any thinker who uses that language (Note 1).This determination is unimportant in many cases, because the results of our thinking are usually subject to check by appeal to empirical facts. In philosophical thinking, however, no such check is available by the very nature of the case. Accordingly, we cannot tell if the difficulty or apparent insolubility of a philosophical problem is due to the problem itself, or simply due to inadequacies in our language. In a different language, so it is suggested, the problem which is difficult for us might very easily be solved. Indeed, there might not then be any such problem, or its solution might be self-evident in this other language. This is the moderate attitude to the language difficulty in philosophy, and it is fair to say that it is almost universally adopted at the present day. In some circles it has acquired the prestige of an indisputable dogma.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 22 , Issue 81 , April 1947 , pp. 49 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1947

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References

1. Perhaps not “determine” in the strict sense, since if this were so nothing could be done about it. There is the same sort of ambiguity here as in Hume's principle of association. It is a gently persuasive force rather than a necessary connection. It then seems that the sort of philosophical problem at the bottom of “determination of thought by language” is the same as is at the bottom of “determination of thought by association of ideas.”

2. Philosophical Arguments, an Inaugural Lecture, Oxford, 1945, p. 9Google Scholar. Our remarks must not be taken as a criticism of the substance of Professor Ryle's lecture.

3. Compare some very interesting remarks by DrWaismann, , “Alternative Logics,” Proc. Arist. Soc., 1945–1946Google Scholar.

4. “Language disguises thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognised,” Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. 63Google Scholar.

5. See Jesperson, Analytic Syntax, and the references quoted therein.

6. Professor Broad made this suggestion some years ago. (Proc. Arist. Soc. Suppl. Vol. XV, p. 113Google Scholar.)

7. Purely verbal difficulties of translation are discussed by MrRichards, I. A., Mencius on the Mind (London, 1932)Google Scholar.

8. There is a discussion of the development of the ideas of implication and causal connection in Chinese thought in Mr. E. R. Hughes' The Great Learning and The Mean in Action.

9. The “Speckled Hen” problem was invented by Professor Ryle. It is discussed by MrChisholm, (Mind, N.S. 204, p. 368)Google Scholar, and appears to be a peculiarity of languages which lack any means of expressing the distinction between appearance and reality. The other problem is similar. It is briefly expounded by Professor Price in bis criticism of MrAyer, A. J.'s “Foundations of Empirical Knowledge,” Mind, N.S. 199, p. 292Google Scholar.