I was born into the English language, so to speak, in the sense that I cannot remember a pre-linguistic self, a "me" which existed before things had names. As much as I can remember, things have always had names, and I used the names I already knew to get a rough idea of how new names were used, at least before I could see them in action and get used to them that way. Then I learned the names for things in other languages like French and Latin, names which sometimes worked the way the names I knew worked, but most of the time didn't.
I don't try to define things, but I'll try to do my best to explain my usage to someone who is unfamiliar with it, so then I can have a rough predictor of how I and others will use the term in the future.
Language works. Not always well, but it works. So that's sort of a starting point. The only problem is that it renders birth impossible or, to speak less gnomically, this viewpoint cannot make sense of language acquisition, it only understands language-using selves as things which appear ex nihilo (the whole schema is somewhat solipsistic).
Wittgenstein, the main theorist (if you could even apply that term to him!) upon whom I'm drawing here, produced many problematizations and questions but few answers. But he pretty much exploded the ideas that things could be clearly be defined for the remainder of 20th century philosophy.
Sometimes I notice that things have names and the names are very inexact and try to make new, exact(er) names, because it is fun to try.
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Date: 2007-04-13 12:49 am (UTC)I don't try to define things, but I'll try to do my best to explain my usage to someone who is unfamiliar with it, so then I can have a rough predictor of how I and others will use the term in the future.
Language works. Not always well, but it works. So that's sort of a starting point. The only problem is that it renders birth impossible or, to speak less gnomically, this viewpoint cannot make sense of language acquisition, it only understands language-using selves as things which appear ex nihilo (the whole schema is somewhat solipsistic).
Wittgenstein, the main theorist (if you could even apply that term to him!) upon whom I'm drawing here, produced many problematizations and questions but few answers. But he pretty much exploded the ideas that things could be clearly be defined for the remainder of 20th century philosophy.
Sometimes I notice that things have names and the names are very inexact and try to make new, exact(er) names, because it is fun to try.