On Language, Understanding and Meaning

Monica Booth Kingston Philosophy Caf, July 2017

Taken as a system of communication between members of multifarious social groups for cooperating, whether spoken,
written, or in sign, language between human beings differentiates itself from language between non-human beings by its
nature of having infinite productivity and creativity.

Yet, if progress depends on cooperation between individuals and members of social groups, then unequivocal acceptance
of certain notions is standard, especially where progress is pursued for progresss sake. If the concept of progress is taken
synonymously with rationality or intuitionism, then the relationship between language and thinking becomes
important; as "thinking" itself comes with a number of both linguistic and philosophical presuppositions. Furthermore,
when the word meaning is used by us to make sense of the objects of the world, what supporting role does language
play in our understanding of it? Some examples in philosophy will be used as a starting point, before exploring the more
general aspects of the relations between language, understanding and meaning.
__________

The aims of todays talk are:

a) To stimulate a group discussion about language by looking at its general functions and by
giving examples of ways in which it is analysed
b) To inform about a philosophical method which scrutinizes everyday language called
linguistic phenomenology
c) To demonstrate the problems associated with using true or false in determining what it
is that we know to be reality

Of the discipline of humanities in the UK, languages make up one-third and its contribution to the
total global $40 billion language industry is also one third. If there were greater understanding
around the interpretation of words, actions or things, if there were less of a chance of a persons
meaning being mistaken or intentionally being taken in the wrong way it might be worth a bit more.

What I know about language:

- It differs in the way it is used among groups; I speak English, but my use of language is not
the same with family or friends, in church or schools or in public or work settings.
- Its used to acquire knowledge of something. If I pick up a book I assimilate the authors
language which can teach me about facts or it can acquaint me with the authors
experiences or memories.
- That a foreign language is like a linguistic passport to another culture or nation. Its an
opportunity to twist my tongue in different ways and take nationality anywhere in the
world.
- Its a form of symbolism which I share with everyone else as a person who says glass or
table and points to a glass or table.

Functions of Language and Notions of Responsibility

Taking two recent examples in the media:

Vladimir Putin responding to the film director Oliver Stones question do you have bad days? with
the answer I dont have bad days, Im not a woman (presumably spoken in Russian). It is Western
culture to interpret his use of language as one of conveying identity so by saying he is not a woman,
he is telling us he is a man.

Or, a woman is on trial in the US for urging her boyfriend to end his life with text messages and
phone calls using words like youre ready, you just need to do it. Lawyers for the woman argue
that her texts are an expression of free speech so the interpretation here is that she is using
language to self-express and communicate.

In both examples human beings are expressing ideas and using language to communicate, but why
might Vladimir Putin not be exercising his right to free speech? This would suggest that languages
have hierarchical elements to them to which social powers are attached.

And, accountability elements so that onlookers can attribute the words spoken or written to the
person who said them, ask them what the state or quality of those words are (their meaning), and
attribute responsibility when things go wrong.

Aside from being vast collections of words or vocabularies, to paraphrase the philosopher A J Ayer
languages have very many uses. In addition to stating facts, they can be used prescriptively,
ritualistically, playfully or performatively. In other definitions there is also catharsis (emotional
release). Im going to focus on the performative aspects of language, but the other uses are
something we can come back to later and discuss.

Language Defined
A metaphor sometimes used for language is a spiders web (Nietzsche) (Its not unlike the w.w.w.).

One definition is that language is a system of specialised symbols expressed conventionally. Its a
convention because for human beings, as members of social groups and participants in its culture
(where participating in a culture means taking on the paradigms of the groups), the belief systems of
the group have language embedded in them so as well as being a means to express one-self, its a
way to shame and oppress people1.

What is convention? Nietzsche says2 words are sounds designating concepts, and concepts are
images designating sensations. Convention, thus, is not using the same words, but the same species
of inner experiences. Thats why members of one group understand one another better than do
members of differing groups even when they use the same language. Frequently recurring
experiences, he says, gain the upper hand over those experienced rarely and, therefore, the history
of language is the history of a process of abbreviation.

Understanding as consciousness of something

Going further with this idea that language is a process of abbreviation between individuals and
members of social groups and that we get our notions of meaning from conventions, if we cant
understand a concept, then a demonstration of concept is a way of helping us to understanding it.

1
Where expression means either spoken or written. Linguistic ideology is an anthropological concept
examining the beliefs or feelings about language held by the speaker, as shaped by the cultural system the
speaker is part of, in which the language is embedded.
2
Beyond Good and Evil section 268
For example the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty says that wherever classical prejudice prevails
meaning will get closer to or exhibit an affinity for sensing in language and perceiving will be
missed. He says that to accept a sentence like I sense blue is easily done, yet it is nothing short of
confused.

Why? Because sensation, he says, might be understood in the way in which I am affected (for
example the blue of the sky or being bone-chillingly cold). In other words, the sensation presents to
us as an undifferentiated, instantaneous jolt, so on which side of the qualitative content is its
notion sought, on the side of our experience? Why do we feel justified, he asks, in distinguishing
within experience a layer of idea/feeling or opinion when for animals such as chimpanzees and
chickens, perceptions have to do with relationships and not terms?

The implications of this is that factual perceptions are more to do with agreements in language
among many (conventions). Think about the implications if this were not the case. We say the blue
of the sky or the brown of the table so that we get on with life and make progress, otherwise,
everyone will be putting his/her own slant on things and we will be stuck with defining things
forever. It was Nietzsche, however, who believed that it was words for common experiences which
held men back from making progress.

Language as convention or intention?

Yet the philosopher J L Austin (1911-1960) wrote about whether the system of symbols called
language is a product of convention or whether it is a product of intention in his book How To Do
Things With Words published in 19753 in which he introduced the speech act theory. The theory
had a profound impact on problems of language in philosophy, such as freedom of speech and
responsibility.

Before that time, logical positivisms verification principle produced neat dichotomies on utterances
by asking is it a) meaningful and is it b) verifiable. To Austin, this was an oversimplification and
introduced dogma into the fundamental problems of language in philosophy. By the principles
criterion also, metaphysics, ontology and ethics were meaningless.

Instead, Austins approach to gain access to features in the world picked out by the expressions we
use4 was to develop a linguistic phenomenology by going back to ordinary, messy, every-day
language and developing a peculiar analytical methodology and style. Its not the only right way of
analysing language, he says; its a way. It wasnt the first time that ordinary, everyday language was
scrutinized and picked apart in this level of detail. Besides Austin, natural language philosophy was
already in development in the later work of Wittgenstein, then Paul Grice and Peter Strawson.

To give you some background on linguistic phenomenology, it shares its roots with logical positivism
and ordinary language philosophy in the work of mathematician and logician Frege (1848-1925), but
Phenomenology is founded really in the work of Brentano (1838-1917) and Husserl and, not to
mention Hegel, who wrote Phenomenology of Spirit in the early 19th century.

3
See also J L Austins ordinary language analysis book Sense and Sensibilia (1962)
4
John Langshaw Austin (1911-1960), 2017. IEP. Retrieved 12 June 2017, from
http://www.iep.utm.edu/austin/
What was especially notable about Frege and his first book, Conceptscript, published in 1879, was
that it was the first of its kind to use complex and unfamiliar symbols to express unfamiliar ideas,
thereby standardizing natural language and formalizing semantic ambiguity5.

This logicized, natural language emphasizes fluidity of meaning in the nuances of everyday language,
reflecting differences between the materiality, and Austin picked up on this. Particularly, he asked
how do we treat and verify extraordinary cases (i.e. things we cannot predict) and illogical
assertions?

In order to gain access to features in the world picked out by the expressions we used he asked is
true or false applicable to every utterance? and would it not be more direct to ask whether they
are successful or unsuccessful communications within the context of the circumstances, the
audience and the intentions?

Yet, how does Austins approach show up as a work of linguistic phenomenology? Expediently, the
answer is in its intervening characterisation of the subject-matter/object-mind relationship that
proceeds from Husserlian phenomenology.

It doesnt deny the thought of that relationship, but states that in addition to it should be the
thought that mind is engaged in sense experience and consequently in the world. This means that
insights into the structures and relationships of concretely experienced phenomena can be obtained
by the careful study and systematization of variation between linguistic examples that experience or
imagination present to us. Language isnt something out there, its in (here) us.

The result is that the neat dichotomies of true or false which Austin criticizes the verification
principle of disappear and the gap between subjectivity and objectivity becomes obscure.

Austin says that utterances assessed along the dimension of truth or false distinguished from
utterances assessed along the dimensions of successful and unsuccessful6 communications are
deceptive in appearance and thus he comes to the main presentation of his thesis that in any
element of language usage a performative feature is habitually present. That is, by saying something
we are always doing something. It is here, though, where the ordinary language philosophers and
phenomenologists part ways. Yes, the nuances of everyday language are a good place to start for
phenomenological analyses, say the phenomenologists, but the study of ordinary language cannot
and need not be the basis for revealing all the complexities of material objects in the world.

The problems with new language

To bring the discussion to a close, then, one further question on the idea of lexicon growing and
language expanding.

The polytheistic view of Heraclitus is that the world is in a constant state of flux, or change, and life is
seen as dealing with the unexpected. Man is constantly seeking answers, some of which he doesnt

5
Contrast this with the semantically perfect language which Russell, the earlier Wittgenstein and Quine
wanted to build purposely for philosophical and scientific communications.
6
Austin uses the words felicitous and unfelicitous to show that assertions require certain circumstances for
successful communication to occur. See footnote 3.
have the language for. Being lost for words is not an inaccurate expression for new experiences;
there is no language.

The monotheistic view of Nietzsche is explained by the metaphor of the world is a great spider, and
the metaphysical cobweb that is language is the spiders causal web. We are born into this symbolic
web where meaning has already been determined for us and learning a language/getting to know
our world are synonymous.

Language is the medium between mind and world, where the self participates in something much
bigger than itself, ruling out subjectivism from early on.

Given this, we dont make words, then, we come into them that is, they guarantee objectivity in
thought because we inherit or lose them throughout millennia. This presents philosophy with new
challenges for ethics in terms of descriptions and keeping up to date with everything thats going on.

Questions
Linguistic misconstruction might be said to occur when a word or action is interpreted wrongly; is it
then a falsity?

Is it true to say that a language can be used in infinite ways? (if aggregates of words which convey
some qualities or feeling are named vocabularies and vocabularies make up language?)

Quotes
Language most shows a man. Speak, that I may see thee. Ben Johnson, Timber. What about in
cases where language obfuscates?

Certainty is not in the senses, but in the understanding alone, when it has evident perceptions7
Descartes

7
Descartes, R., 1968. Preface. In: Discourse on Method and the Meditations. London: Penguin Classics, pp.
174-176.