Good morning friends,
Welcome to our Weekly Rundown from our study of language. Each of the philosophers we learned from had their own unique take on the subject, but they overlapped in so many important ways as well.
Let’s take a look.
(Also, make sure to check out the end of this newsletter for some exciting news about next week!)
Monday
What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
In his book Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein is hoping to completely rebuild his work to that point. After years off from academia, he re-emerges deeply frustrated with himself and his previous approach to language
His frustrations all have to do with understanding meaning and use.
More than anything, Wittgenstein wants us to understand that we are most often discussing representations and pictures of what we think we mean and what we think we understand.
His work exposes just how little we understand each other, and just how much we take for granted that we do.
I consider so much of the dualistic fighting that occurs in modern public discourse and wonder what would happen if we accepted that we largely do not understand each other, and slowed down to listen, learn, and work through a conversation long enough to genuinely absorb someone else’s meaning.
Tuesday
The development of language is part of the development of the personality, for words are the natural means of expressing thoughts and establishing understanding between people.
—Maria Montessori
While Wittgenstein was primarily focused on meaning and use within language, Montessori was primarily concerned with the mechanics of development and social function. She was fascinated with children, and spent countless hours observing them and testing hypotheses of their development.
The greatest observation she left for us was the way in which children began absorbing language as early as 3 months old. She noted a “special window” of sorts in which a child is hyper-absorbent between birth and 3 years old. In this stage our brains are physically primed to take on their first language.
She concluded that we do not learn how to speak, as much as our brains are primed to receive a language. In many respects, we are born with the capacity for language, and we just need to learn the “game.” Ironically, this is exactly how Wittgenstein often referred to language, he called speech a pattern of language games.
Wednesday
A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.
—Noam Chomsky
I believe that one could draw a direct line from Montessori, to Wittgenstein, to Chomsky. Each of these thinkers orbited this problem (what is language?) while also doing incredible work in other fields.
Chomsky remains even in our time a prolific thinker, still engaging in history and political dialogue from a deeply moralistic and principled perspective. He was even the subject of a Netflix documentary covering his analysis of the United States from a historical/ethical perspective.
Similar to Montessori, Chomsky observed the innate ability of young children to understand and absorb language. He went a step further to hypothesize the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)—a yet to be identified component of our minds pre-programmed for language. He believed this LAD was attuned to a universal grammar which helped us absorb and utilize our mother tongue.
Just like a bird obeys its instinct to fly, so too does a human being obey its instinct to speak, to communicate, to connect.
Thursday
He [Al-Farabi] paid special attention to the study of language and its relation to logic. In his numerous commentaries on Aristotle's logical works he expounded for the first time in Arabic the entire range of the scientific and nonscientific forms of argument and established the place of logic as the indispensable prerequisite for philosophic inquiry.
—Muhsin Mahdi
Abu Nasr Al-Farabi spent much of his professional life studying the works of Aristotle, translating them into Arabic, and working them into the larger framework of Muslim scholarship.
Excitingly, much of this work was actually a joint project done by Al-Farabi, his mentor, and a few of their Arab Christian counterparts. This type of alliance demonstrates the kinship that philosophy created when sectarianism could have developed just as easy.
The result of this work was mountains of careful scholarship done by precise students seeking to know the meaning and thought of Aristotle and other Greek thinkers. They not only translated, but also challenged, fused, incorporated, and critiqued the work making invaluable contributions to the Great Conversation.
Yet again, it’s in the study of language that we encounter the importance of humility in the face of public discourse. Perhaps it was this very precept that enabled people of such diverse groups to collaborate in the name of wisdom and preservation.
Conclusion
As we can see, the approaches to the philosophy of language are as diverse as the people who studied the topic. However, if we can stand back far enough to see the forest through the trees, there are a few over-arching concepts that emerge that have a direct impact in the way we live our lives today.
Humans have a special capacity for language—we discover language from within and match it up with the sounds of our environment. Language is less taught to us, it emerges as a uniquely human capacity. Language is to humans, what flight is to birds.
Language does more than explain—it connects, creates, and changes the course of events. Community, love, science, innovation, these are only possible with our capacity for language.
There is a sharp line between use and meaning. While language is a unique human gift, it is often taken for granted. Truly understanding another’s meaning requires attention, care, and patience. Without these disciplines, it’s almost better not to speak at all. Perhaps this explains the difficulty we face in public discourse in our own time.
Special Update
Friends,
I’ll be sending out a more detailed update tomorrow, but I wanted to prime the news here.
Starting next week, we’ll be taking a pause from daily reflections to get to know each other. I’ll be starting off the week explaining a bit more about me, the reason this newsletter exists, and where we hope to go.
In many respects, this community and work has already grown in ways I could not have expected. We want to make sure that we foster conversation and a neutral space for people to interact on the topics that give them joy and passion.
We have a lot of ideas about how to make this happen, but we’re going to need your help.
So make sure to keep an eye out for next week’s newsletter, and be ready to join in the conversation!
Until then,
Matt at TPP
Language