More than any
other thing, the use of language sets humankind
apart from the
remainder of the animal kingdom. There
is some
debate as to
where the actual boundary between language and
communication
should be drawn, however there seems to be no
debate as to the
nature of Language, which is to communicate, using
abstract
symbols, the workings of one mind to one
or more others
with a relatively
high degree of accuracy. It could
perhaps be said
that we are all
capable of expressing or representing our thoughts
in a manner that
is only meaningful to ourselves.
Wittgenstein says
that ..a wheel
that can be turned though nothing else moves with
it is not part of
the mechanism.1 The idea of a uniquely personal
language is not
relevant here and so will not be discussed further.
Language is a
system of symbols which represent thoughts,
perceptions and a
multitude of other mental events.
Although the
meaning of a
given word or expression is by no means fixed, there is
a sufficiently
high degree of consensus in most cases to ensure that
our thoughts are
to a great extent communicable. This
essay will
concentrate on
two aspects of language. Firstly that it gives our own
thoughts and
those of others a certain degree of
portability and
secondly that
because it has a firm (though not rigid) set of rules
governing the
relationships between symbols it allows what would
otherwise be
internal concepts that could not be generalised, to be
made explicit,
examined in detail and compared.
If we did not
have language we would be able to surmise very little
about other
humans around us. Non-verbal
communication has
evolved to
instantaneously communicate ones emotional state, and
generally
succeeds in this, however although it can reveal what a
person may be
feeling at a particular time, it says nothing about
why those
feelings are present and in any case is most reliable with
strong emotions
such as anger, fear, disgust &c. The less intense the
emotion the more
vaguely it is portrayed. If we are aware
of the
events preceeding
the display of emotion we may be able to
attribute a cause
to it, but as psychologists Jones and Nisbett (1972)
showed, these
attributions are quite likely to be inaccurate due to
the predilection
that humans have for attributing behaviour to the
disposition of
the person being observed. In addition
to all of this,
non-verbal
communication is limited to observers in the immediate
area at the time
of the behaviour.
In contrast to
this, language allows us to group ideas and
perceptions
together and compare them in order to reach a high
degree of
consensus about their meaning.
Wittgenstein says that
You learned the
concept pain when you learned language.2 The
portability that
language imparts to thoughts and perceptions
allows us to
compare our own response to various experienced
stimuli with
anothers report of their response to a similar event
which we may or
may not have witnessed. Over time it
becomes
possible to
discern certain trends and so, for example, the sensation
that we feel when
we strike our thumbs with a hammer, the
characteristic
pain behaviour and such things as the anguish that
people feel at
the end of a romantic liaison all become part of the
general concept
of pain, even though they are all
dissimilar in form
(this point will
be discussed subsequently). By using
language
humans can
vicariously partake of the experiences of another (e.g.
when one watches
a play or a film or when one listens to an account
of a friends experience.) In short, language allows us to make
comparisons
between our own thought processes and those of
others which in
turn enables us to infer that the subjective
experience of
others is in many cases similar to our own.
An important
property of language is that it has rules governing the
relationships
between its constituent parts. Some of
these rules are
more rigid than
others which gives the system considerable overall
flexibility. For instance, there is a great difference
between saying
You are not
allowed to do it. and You are allowed not to do it.
This is a crude
example but it makes the point that the meaning of
an utterance
depends upon more than just the words used.
In
addition an
utterance may be meaningful, and grammatically valid
and still be
nonsense, For instance the sentence; An
Elephant is a
fish in
wellingtons The meaning of the sentence
is perfectly clear
and the rules
of grammar have hopefully been obeyed,
but the
sentence itself
is patently untrue.
The analysis of
sense and meaning is carried out using Logic, the
study of argument
and inference. Logical analysis of an utterance
can establish the
validity, or non-validity of any assertions that it
makes. To use the oft-quoted example; All men are mortal and
Socrates is a
man. One may infer from these statements
that
Socrates is
mortal, since there is no combination of circumstances in
which they could
simultaneously be true and Socrates immortal.
One major
contribution that logic makes to the understanding of
the difference between
ourselves and others is that it can identify
assumptions that
are commonly made when speaking of others.
For
instance, to
continue the pain example, If one sees a person
exhibiting pain
behaviour one is apt to think; That person is in
pain. but it is impossible for one to actually know
what they are
feeling. To a greater or lesser degree one infers that
the others
actual experience
mirrors ones own to the same degree that their
behaviour
does. In the same vein, if I see my best
friend slip with a
screwdriver for
instance, and injure his hand, I could reasonably say
that I know him
to be in pain, given that long experience has not
shown any great
difference between his apparent response to injury
and my own. However I could not make the same statement
about
myself with any
real meaning for the simple reason that my own
experience of
pain transcends knowledge. In my own
case it makes
as much, or as
little sense to say that I doubt that I am in pain as it
does to say that
I know that I am.
Language
therefore can be said to be something of a two-edged
sword when
referring to an understanding of the differences
between knowledge
of the self and knowledge of another.
One the
one hand the
ability to ask questions of the type;
What do you
mean by
......? can allow some insight into the
thought processes
underlying the
behaviour of another. On the other hand
an analysis
of the differences between what is actually
being said when a
statement is made
referring to another and the same statement
made referring to
oneself, can show that ultimately ones knowledge
of oneself and
ones knowledge of others are two fundamentally
different
things. Knowledge of self is based on
priviliged
information that,
in the absence of telepathic communication, is
only available to
oneself. This does not mean to say that
our
knowledge of
ourselves is either accurate or complete.
Human
beings are
generally highly proficient at self-deception, nontheless a
word, a sentence,
a series of sentences can only be an approximation
of the thoughts
behind them, likewise when words impact upon our
consciousness,
they are subject to interpretation. The
purpose of
language is to
communicate but as Huxley says; By its
very nature
every embodied
spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude.
Sensations,
feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and,
except through
symbols and at second hand, incommunicable.
We
can pool
information about experiences, but never the experiences
themselves. From family to nation every human group is a
society
of island
universes.
REFERENCES
1) Wittgenstein.
L. 1995. Philosophical Investigations. 271.
2) ibid.
384.
3) Huxley. A.
1954. The Doors of
Perception. pp3-4.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hume. D. 1985.
A Treatise of human nature.
Penguin.
Huxley. A. 1994.
The Doors of Perception.
Flamingo.
OHear. A.
1985. What philosophy is. Penguin.
Putnam. H. 1975.
Mind Language and Reality.
Cambridge
University Press.
Wittgenstein. L.
1995. Philosophical
Investigations. Blackwell.
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