Nothing will come of language

28th March 2007

posted in Philosophy by themaiden |

I can’t for the life of me figure out why people want to make so much of language. It is a clumsy mess of metaphor and innuendo, loose associations, broad overgeneralizations, half-baked inferences, and historical baggage imported from dozens of languages and cultures. Yet, time and again we insist that there is something magical in our utterances, something profound in our choice of words.

The tradition stretches back at least as far as Plato, who built his whole philosophy– and poisoned the western philosophical tradition– with his confusion of ‘word’ with ‘reality’. And today, analytic philosophy charges blithely along the same absurd path. Still, I cannot understand it.

Mike, at God3’s Blogs, started me thinking about the subject this morning, so I’ll plug him.

It seems living and thinking within an impersonal origin is difficult when referring to purposeless forces, if you cannot live with honesty and non-contradiction within your worldview, perhaps the worldview is at fault?What is it about people that make them want to refer to phenomena and entities as personal?Of course we use metaphor, something which aids explanations and enriches language, such as describing forces as blind.When a specific phenomenon is characterized as impersonal and this is emphasized again and again, why then do random collections of atoms such as science writers keep referring to the impersonal in ways that attribute personality?It is not using metaphor that I am concerned with, but specifically, assigning characteristics exclusive to personality and agency to that which is reckoned to be devoid of intent or personality.Where intent and agency are most conspicuous by there total absence, is the very place where they creep in through the semantic backdoor, that is in the theory of evolution.

Nothing will come of nothing! « God3’s Blog

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1 On March 28th, 2007, Jamon said:

Perhaps this “clumsy mess of metaphor and innuendo” is a blunt tool to use when describing tangible stuff.

For me however, language can be used to express numinous, subjective feelings in beautiful and life-affirming ways. I think the world would be a lesser place without it.

Everything in its right place, I suppose

2 On March 28th, 2007, Friendly Neighborhood DJ said:

Well, I should admit up front that I am an utter word nerd. I really enjoy “frolicking in gratuitous language,” as one editor put it, though I do so in the understanding that sometimes I am going overboard (sometimes on purpose).

That said, I do understand the need to constantly personify, though I don’t always agree with it. As Mike seems to be, I’m not so much against personification as a means of description (as that can be a great aid in describing something unfamiliar, though it can certainly get out of hand quickly) as I am against personification as a way of ascribing motive to things that cannot have motives. Exceptions are made for fictional/storytelling purposes, of course, but as an arguing tactic, personification is very weak indeed.

3 On March 28th, 2007, themaiden said:

Jamon,

I think language is pretty much always a mess, but it is the best we’ve got. It is the only thing we’ve got, really. Of course it can be used to express very elusive ideas. There is no doubt about that, but reflect upon how you go about expressing those thoughts. Do you chain yourself to a dictionary and a grammar book? Doubtful. I’d suggest that people who can express very subtle thoughts do so by learning to exploit the messiness– the metaphor, innuendo, and baggage– of language. This, I think, is the only reasonable way to approach language. What I object to, among other things, is taking this almost poetic construct, analyzing it with dictionary and grammar book in hand, and pretending that this analysis somehow gets to the ‘real’ meaning. Language is messy, but this sort of ignorant reanalysis is where the big mess is made.