Thursday, April 14, 2005
do i need to put sources?all i got was stuff from the text book..+(
oh well..about 1200 plus!ahha..minus a whole load of shit.i feel tt i should put examples.but i woudl hav to think of them.haiiizzz..
“All of the other Ways of Knowing are controlled by language.” What does this statement mean and do you think it is a fair representation of the relationship between perception, emotion, reason, and language?
The statement “all of the other ways of knowing ate controlled by language.” means that the ways with which one obtains knowledge are controlled by the medium of the person’s language. The verb “controlled” in this statement implies ‘restricted’, for the language manipulates the way we perceive things as the culture that comes with the language influences the meaning of each word. It may even shape the way we see things. For example in German or French, words have genders, and consequently the gender it is classified as influences the meaning of the word. This uncertainty in language thus affects our way of knowing, for a lot of our knowledge is passed to us via other people, and so we obtain the knowledge logically, empirically, through memory or through logic. This knowledge by description has four requirements: firstly, empirical evidence or logic or memory or authority must justify the knowledge, secondly, it must be true, thirdly, it must be believed, and lastly, it can be effectively and accurately communicated. In other words it can be passed on through a language, which might cause the true meaning of the knowledge to be adapted along the way.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that people do not live in the objective world alone, but are very much at the mercy of the language which is the medium of expression of their society. This implies that language is interlinked with culture. And across the globe, cultures differ greatly. Some cultures advocate aggressiveness in going after one’s goals, whereas some cultures might promote a roundabout politeness and less ‘to the point’ directness when one is pursuing a point of view and such issues. Each culture might see an issue in different ways, optimistically, pessimistically, and they may also weight people differently. Certain character traits and gender that is considered good in one culture may not be so important in another culture. Each word or phrase gives a person different impressions in different languages, and this is especially so because each persons’ perception is dependent on many different variables. Not only the social and cultural conditioning, which brings about prejudices and assumptions and leads to false conclusions, alter a person’s perception but past experiences would cause one to predict the outcome of an issue, and if the outcome is not as predicted, the person might even over look it and still think that the outcome was that that was predicted, and not possibly reality. Human biological limitations affects the sensitivity of our senses, and many a time human senses are just not well equipped enough to sense certain things. Such as certain sounds or smells, and even nightlife, for our eyes are not equipped well enough to see clearly in the dark without any infra red goggles or spotlights and such technology, which may even be flawed as well! Spatial familiarity may also cause us to blunder while pursuing an answer- we all what to see the familiar, so if we do not, our brains might even trick themselves into seeing what we want to see instead of what is really there. We might not even notice some things, for we also filter all information that our sensory organs receive. For example, a person sitting on a chair would cease to consciously feel he or she is sitting on the chair after a while. Most importantly, our dependence on language hinders our perception. For language is a means whereby our thoughts and ideas are organized. And if we cannot figure out a way to describe our knowledge, then that may be soon forgotten as it would not be able to be passed down the generations and join the pool of knowledge that humans have obtained.
This brings out another important question: if there was no language, then would it be possible to think? Our mind is capable of creating thoughts and ideas that our own language has no word for, although this may be represented accurately in another language, the idea or thought that exists and it inexpressible had proven to be creatable, this justifies the idea that even thought our language has not produced a term for it, our minds may think it up all the same. Thus is would be possible to think with our language, even though we may not be able to organize our thoughts and share them without the medium of language for transfer. So the question is really confusing the effectiveness of language to communicate about anything rather than whether language controls our ability to think. Animals have their own various languages, and it can be seen that although their language may not contain as wide and complex a vocabulary as ours, they are capable of thought, as can be deduced from our cousins the great apes, or highly intelligent marine mammals such as whales and dolphins. These creatures would have obtained the vast majority of their own knowledge from the other ways of knowing besides by description.
Through Bacon’s idols of the market place, which are meaningless words, double meaning words and jargon, we can explore how these confusions in language also cause disruption in their meanings and thus why expressing arguments in symbolic terms is advantageous. These idols of the market place confuse and blur the meaning of an argument. Such words would be used so generally that they do not seen to mean anything, words with more than one meaning would be used in such a way that the meaning of the word is not specified, and non-universal technical or polysyllabic words maybe used that cause the receiver to not comprehend the message properly. Thus, if one uses symbols to represent the different arguments, without the grammar or vocabulary of the language in use to cause confusion, and apply the use of a logic table to attest the arguments, then the vagueness and ambiguity of language is accounted for and not a hindrance. But of course, the person must be clear on what the argument is in order to understand what is the outcome. These idols also make it hard for a person to express him/herself, for the listener might also misinterpret the meanings, depending on what he wants to hear or what the person classifies each word meaning as. For example, if person A told person B that he was feeling sad, person B would not have a clue how sad person A was unless he had been in a similar situation before and felt empathetic towards person A. Since emotions cannot be measured, and each and every person has had different experiences, then language may not accurately convey the emotion or attitude in an accurate way, thus language is used less as a depiction of emotion, for emotion a reaction to one’s experience. This is the reason why writers tend to used literary devices such as imagery in order to evoke different feelings to their audience through plain man-made words which have no meanings until one learns them.
In conclusion, our language tends to influence our perception of things, and it also controls our mindsets. This makes it influential to our emotions, but it does not dominate our emotions. And as for reason, all language would do is confuse our reasoning with Bacon’s idols. But we must remember than language is merely a tool, and does not affect one’s thoughts though it may case it to be prejudiced at times.
oh well..about 1200 plus!ahha..minus a whole load of shit.i feel tt i should put examples.but i woudl hav to think of them.haiiizzz..
“All of the other Ways of Knowing are controlled by language.” What does this statement mean and do you think it is a fair representation of the relationship between perception, emotion, reason, and language?
The statement “all of the other ways of knowing ate controlled by language.” means that the ways with which one obtains knowledge are controlled by the medium of the person’s language. The verb “controlled” in this statement implies ‘restricted’, for the language manipulates the way we perceive things as the culture that comes with the language influences the meaning of each word. It may even shape the way we see things. For example in German or French, words have genders, and consequently the gender it is classified as influences the meaning of the word. This uncertainty in language thus affects our way of knowing, for a lot of our knowledge is passed to us via other people, and so we obtain the knowledge logically, empirically, through memory or through logic. This knowledge by description has four requirements: firstly, empirical evidence or logic or memory or authority must justify the knowledge, secondly, it must be true, thirdly, it must be believed, and lastly, it can be effectively and accurately communicated. In other words it can be passed on through a language, which might cause the true meaning of the knowledge to be adapted along the way.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that people do not live in the objective world alone, but are very much at the mercy of the language which is the medium of expression of their society. This implies that language is interlinked with culture. And across the globe, cultures differ greatly. Some cultures advocate aggressiveness in going after one’s goals, whereas some cultures might promote a roundabout politeness and less ‘to the point’ directness when one is pursuing a point of view and such issues. Each culture might see an issue in different ways, optimistically, pessimistically, and they may also weight people differently. Certain character traits and gender that is considered good in one culture may not be so important in another culture. Each word or phrase gives a person different impressions in different languages, and this is especially so because each persons’ perception is dependent on many different variables. Not only the social and cultural conditioning, which brings about prejudices and assumptions and leads to false conclusions, alter a person’s perception but past experiences would cause one to predict the outcome of an issue, and if the outcome is not as predicted, the person might even over look it and still think that the outcome was that that was predicted, and not possibly reality. Human biological limitations affects the sensitivity of our senses, and many a time human senses are just not well equipped enough to sense certain things. Such as certain sounds or smells, and even nightlife, for our eyes are not equipped well enough to see clearly in the dark without any infra red goggles or spotlights and such technology, which may even be flawed as well! Spatial familiarity may also cause us to blunder while pursuing an answer- we all what to see the familiar, so if we do not, our brains might even trick themselves into seeing what we want to see instead of what is really there. We might not even notice some things, for we also filter all information that our sensory organs receive. For example, a person sitting on a chair would cease to consciously feel he or she is sitting on the chair after a while. Most importantly, our dependence on language hinders our perception. For language is a means whereby our thoughts and ideas are organized. And if we cannot figure out a way to describe our knowledge, then that may be soon forgotten as it would not be able to be passed down the generations and join the pool of knowledge that humans have obtained.
This brings out another important question: if there was no language, then would it be possible to think? Our mind is capable of creating thoughts and ideas that our own language has no word for, although this may be represented accurately in another language, the idea or thought that exists and it inexpressible had proven to be creatable, this justifies the idea that even thought our language has not produced a term for it, our minds may think it up all the same. Thus is would be possible to think with our language, even though we may not be able to organize our thoughts and share them without the medium of language for transfer. So the question is really confusing the effectiveness of language to communicate about anything rather than whether language controls our ability to think. Animals have their own various languages, and it can be seen that although their language may not contain as wide and complex a vocabulary as ours, they are capable of thought, as can be deduced from our cousins the great apes, or highly intelligent marine mammals such as whales and dolphins. These creatures would have obtained the vast majority of their own knowledge from the other ways of knowing besides by description.
Through Bacon’s idols of the market place, which are meaningless words, double meaning words and jargon, we can explore how these confusions in language also cause disruption in their meanings and thus why expressing arguments in symbolic terms is advantageous. These idols of the market place confuse and blur the meaning of an argument. Such words would be used so generally that they do not seen to mean anything, words with more than one meaning would be used in such a way that the meaning of the word is not specified, and non-universal technical or polysyllabic words maybe used that cause the receiver to not comprehend the message properly. Thus, if one uses symbols to represent the different arguments, without the grammar or vocabulary of the language in use to cause confusion, and apply the use of a logic table to attest the arguments, then the vagueness and ambiguity of language is accounted for and not a hindrance. But of course, the person must be clear on what the argument is in order to understand what is the outcome. These idols also make it hard for a person to express him/herself, for the listener might also misinterpret the meanings, depending on what he wants to hear or what the person classifies each word meaning as. For example, if person A told person B that he was feeling sad, person B would not have a clue how sad person A was unless he had been in a similar situation before and felt empathetic towards person A. Since emotions cannot be measured, and each and every person has had different experiences, then language may not accurately convey the emotion or attitude in an accurate way, thus language is used less as a depiction of emotion, for emotion a reaction to one’s experience. This is the reason why writers tend to used literary devices such as imagery in order to evoke different feelings to their audience through plain man-made words which have no meanings until one learns them.
In conclusion, our language tends to influence our perception of things, and it also controls our mindsets. This makes it influential to our emotions, but it does not dominate our emotions. And as for reason, all language would do is confuse our reasoning with Bacon’s idols. But we must remember than language is merely a tool, and does not affect one’s thoughts though it may case it to be prejudiced at times.
wandaywang @ 4/14/2005 02:06:00 AM
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