phaedrus

John

First, do we need language to think? Do we need "english" to think? What about people who know 3/4 languages? When they are speaking in a particular language are they "thinking" in that particular language ? Or translating it from their mother tongue to that particular language?

Second question, do you think that language itself is generated by a thought process?

Is this question equivalent to "do you think language is created by the human beings' thought process" or "Are words/phrases generated by the cognitive process?"

Do you consider that thought precedes the language used to convey it?

What do you think? The classicists (LOTH) or connectionists?

John Page

I thought that's what I was asking you....

If you want me to kick off, I'll take a hard opening gambit as follows:

Thought is the name we give to the "informational process" that connects action and reaction in live things. Physiologically, thoughts include neurological activity.

This model becomes complicated in humans as their minds (thought-space if you will) can contain many thoughts about different things at different levels of abstraction.

Some thoughts are associated with in linguistic processing, other thoughts may be dedicated to linguistic processing. Some thoughts are not associated with linguistic processing and yet other thoughts may trigger linguistic processing without participating in the latter.

A couple of examples:
1. An innate reflex (e.g. gag, knee-jerk) does not involve linguistic processing, in fact w.r.t and individual subject it "pre-dates" the acquisition of language skills.
2. A learned reflex (e.g. pulling hand away from flame, ducking away from a flying object) can alos be shown to pre-date language skill acquisition.

As the mind/brain develops, we learn language to report/communicate our experiences to others.

The reason I was specifically wanting you to define the word language for the purposes of debate is that one might take the position any communication is language. Observe an infant and mother making eye contact, they are communicating using body language. So, I wasn't asking you a trick question - merely seeking to know how broad a concept of "language" you wanted to discuss.

For an individual, I think there is a strong case that thought occurs (e.g. in the womb) before any communication takes place. One must first be alive in order to use language! If anyone claims that language pre-exists or is hard-wired I will say that while language capability may be "built-in", communication is not realized until the language capability it is being used.

I think Penny is confused - the "functional entwinement" posited is precisely the reason for arguing toward an understanding about which is what way and what way is who.

Cheers, John

Hugo Holbling

phaedrus:

Why bring in this "Fish is a social structuralist" critique if you can't back it up? As for Olsen, i agree that his argument was simplistic but, to be fair to him, it should be said that i only quoted a few excerpts and he was specifically discussing the role of rhetoric in the justification of belief. To get us back on track, what would would say said role is? Do you think Olsen and Fish over-estimate its importance?

I'll strengthen my position then. Methinks you overlook the possibility that a solely negative critique may be just what the doctor ordered. By way of example (and only an example), offering alternative theories of truth may be a waste of time and effort if what is really called for is dispensing with the concept altogether.

Don't you accept that knocking a bad idea down constitutes doing something about it?

I think we're talking past each other half the time. When Putnam said "there is no God's-eye view", i'll bet he could've guessed that people would say "how do you know - do you have a GEV?" and so on. However, i don't have his books here so i can't check.

In any case, you didn't answer me with regard to my argument before: can the impossibility of a GEV be shown without presupposing a GEV? How about taking a crack at it, even if you answer "no"?

Gotta love it when you write "ummm...". I've read that essay before; indeed, there was some discussion of it here which i was too busy to join in on. It's interesting to read Rorty's response in the light of Dennett's contribution to Rorty And His Critics (as opposed to Putnam's piece, which struck me as lame), an interaction i recommend to you if you haven't already seen it. For my money, Rorty's problem is that he doesn't have Derrida's sense of humour (but then neither do his critics...). Shall we discuss Rorty's shortcomings here, or in the linked thread, or get back to my question about GEVs in general?

You'll have to wait on something substantial regarding Gadamer - i'm snowed under at work.

Luiseach:

Hey - do you reckon he was the advance guard of PoMo? What are your opinions on this issue of positive criticism allowed only?

John Page

Hugo:

It should be self-evident from your point of view that your mind contains the concept "god's eye view". It seems nonsensical to me to even consider the possibility of such a view existing or being attained without first positing such view (i.e. supposing it exists/can be attained in fact).

Ar you after functional equivalence?

Cheers, John

Luiseach

Hugo Holbling

Luiseach:

phaedrus said that maybe folk don't like PoMo because it criticizes without offering an alternative. I asked if it should be more positive, to which he replied:

... so i said:

phaedrus came back at me with:

... and i got the last word (so far) with:

Here endeth the review. I just wondered what you think...

Luiseach

Hugo, I admit it...I completely lost the thread of the conversation, probably due to working all day on an empty stomach - hence the confusion smilie. I couldn't figure out exactly what you were asking me to respond to!

Thank you so much for the review......it was very good of you to do this! :-D

Okay. Funny enough, when I was first exposed to deconstruction, I tended to pose the same type of questions that Phaedrus has now. What's the point of deconstructing something...what happens next? My horrible pomo professor would always reply with an enigmatic smile, and I would conscientiously hit the books once again, none the wiser, and a bit embarrassed by what I felt to be my own inability to find the 'right' answer to the 'question' of deconstruction. I have always liked answers, you know....knowing 'stuff'...and that's how I used to view philosophy and the study of literature at the university level. I've gradually learned that the questions themselves are where it's at with postmodernism, and deconstruction in particular...it's an explorative project. A critical tool. If we limit ourselves to using pomo just to suggest alternative frameworks of reference for anything, then we are falling into the trap of system-building once again, open to all the inherent contradictions, short-comings and weaknesses of the framework we just finished critiquing.

I don't see deconstruction as a negative critical approach, since this implies that there is a positive one, which once again reinscribes the either/or thinking of logocentrism...which is itself the target of deconstruction.


I see the point being made here. In 'real' day-to-day life, there are problems that we don't just critique, but critique with the ultimate aim of finding solutions for.

However, we need to keep in mind that we have to work within the structures we critique, even whilst using the tools of deconstruction. Il n'y a hors du texte - we must remember this pithy wee statement. Sure, we can watch as a text unravels, point out its contradictions and ambiguities...in more pedestrian terms, we can read our lives and see the gray areas of undecidability, problems, contradictions; we can feel the dilemmas involved in choosing between two or more options, each leading towards potentially unknowable consequences...but ultimately we cannot escape the textual fabric of life/language and view it from the god-like vantage point. We can't fix anything with deconstruction, and deconstruction doesn't promise to fix anything. Deconstruction allows us to see flaws, but doesn't necessarily offer constructions/re-constructions that might be 'better' - that's not its 'job,' after all.

Yes, I would agree with this point, but with my thoughts from above the quotation added in for good measure.

Sorry about my earlier confusion! <-------blush

Hugo Holbling

I prefer questions myself - answers have a whiff of certainty about them that puts me off my dinner.

What say you to this, phaedrus?

A Wittgensteinian might object that a supposed problem may turn out to be ill-posed, or a pseudo-problem that dissolves under close scrutiny. The point i'd like to make (in a slightly different form to you) is that by demanding an alternative we presuppose the existence of a problem and the requirement for its solution. Carrying this kind of presence on our backs it's little wonder we only look for the ground beneath our feet.

No such apology necessary! :notworthy

Amos

Holy smoke, here is another one: "Archetypal images in Joyce and Eliot." I forgot about Eliot and "The Waste Land? The truth is, I wrote so many essays and about all I remember is my difficulty with language to write them. I just now think of one I wrote on the "timely uttering" mystery as found in "Intimations of Immortality." That was fun, and here my mind always wanders to this being the equivalent to diving head-first into the river Seine and while still wet ascending Mont Martre on the other side.

The theme of my essay on "A Portrait" was "The Significance of Stephen's Vision." It contains some foreshadows and a irregular slam against the protestant church. Did you know that Cranly was John the Baptist?

Luiseach

Oh, this is way cool...this is one of my favourite poems. I should dig out one of the essays I wrote on it...let's compare notes.

Cranly was John the Baptist? How so?

Ah, it makes sense that your thesis focused on the significance of Stephen's vision. You use archetypal analysis to explicate what's happening to him on the beach...

So what's your favourite bit in Waste Land?