Abstract
The sort of sceptic who doubts the true development of human culture and finds confirmation in philosophy of his thesis of eternal variation on the same basic topics and constant reiteration of the same motifs should be reminded of the history of the problem of language and meaning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Ernst Cassirer, Philosophic der Symbolischen Formen, I 1923, II 1925, III 1929, Berlin.
Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, London, 1923.
Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, Cambridge, Mass., 1931-1935, Vols. I- VI.
Charles Morris, Signs, Language and Behavior, New York, 1946.
Peirce, op. cit., Vol. V, §484.
Ibid., Vol. V, 564.
Charles Morris, Signs, Language and Behavior, New York, 1946.
William Blake, ‘Songs of Experience,’ cited in M. Cornforth, In Defence of Philosophy, London, 150.
For example, Stuart Chase explains the persecution of the Jews as follows: “The long agony of the people called the Jews to a large degree was provoked by semantic confusion.” (Stuart Chase, The Tyranny of Words, p. 230.)
Cassirer states the following fact of essential importance with respect to the relationship of language and thought: “In learning to name things the child does not simply attach a list of artificial signs to his previous knowledge but rather a list of shaped empirical objects. In fact he teaches himself to formulate concepts of these objects and to comprehend the objective worjd... Without the assistance of names each step forward in the process of objectification would be lost the very next moment” (Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man, New Haven, 1944, p. 132).
In one of her studies on language and perception Grace de Laguna correctly states: “If an animal cannot express its thoughts in language, this is because it has no thoughts to be expressed, for unformulated thoughts are a little less than thoughts” (Grace de Laguna, ‘Perception and Language,’ Human Biology I(1929), 555 – 58 ).
Benjamin I. Whorf, ‘The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behaviour to Language’ in Language, Thought and Reality, ed. I. B. Caroll, Cambridge, 1956, pp. 75 – 93.
Dorothy Lee, ‘Conceptual Implications of an Indian Language,’ in Philosophy of Science 5,(1936), 90.
Harry Hoyer, ‘Cultural Implications of Some Navaho Linguistic Categories,’ Language 27(1951), 111 – 120.
Paul Henle, ‘Language, Thought and Culture’ in Language, Thought and Culture, University of Michigan Press, 1958, p. 18.
Ibid., p. 23.
Hegel, The Philosophy of History, Kultura, 1951, p. 79.
Irving Copi, ‘The Growth of Concepts’, in P. Henle, op. cit., p. 33.
“Observe which effects that could have the practical consequences we consider to be the object of our concept. Then our comprehension of these effects is the entirety of our concept of the object” (C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, Vol. V, §2).
Korzybski, Science and Sanity, Connecticut, 1948, p. 82.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 D. Reidel Publishing Company
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Marković, M. (1984). Introduction. In: Dialectical Theory of Meaning. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6256-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6256-9_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-6258-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-6256-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive