Download Mestrado – Terminologia e Tradução

Terminologia e Lexicografia
Epistemology, Philosophy of
Language and Linguistic
Philosophy
Philosophy and language
• Three areas of philosophy relevant to the
understanding of language
– Epistemology or the theory of knowledge
– The Philosophy of Language
– Linguistic Philosophy
Epistemology
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How do we know?
Why do we know?
What do we know?
What can we know?
‘Knowing that’
‘Knowing how’
(Question: ‘know’ = ‘saber’ / ‘conhecer’ ?)
Main questions
• Is knowledge innate or acquired?
– Are we somehow pre-destined to ‘know’
certain things?
– How far do we acquire knowledge only from
experience?
• Rationalism v empiricism
– Do we arrive at our view of the world through
reason alone?
– Do we deduce all we know from experience?
Other questions
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What is perception?
What is reason?
What is reality?
What is appearance?
What is ‘our knowledge of the external
world’?
Other questions
• How reliable is our perception of the external
world?
• How do we solve the ‘other minds’ problem?
• How far can we reach agreement on the nature of
what we perceive individually and collectively?
• What part does language play in our
understanding of the world?
Other questions
• What is it to know something?
• What is truth?
• What counts as evidence for or against a particular
theory?
• What is meant by a proof?
• Or even, as the Greek Skeptics asked, is human
knowledge possible at all, or is human access to
the world such that no knowledge and no certitude
about it is possible?
SIX DISTINCTIONS OF
KNOWLEDGE
• 1. Mental versus non-mental conceptions of
knowledge
– Awareness of knowlege v ‘unconscious’ knowledge
• 2. Dispositional v. Occurrent conceptions of
knowledge
– e.g. A sugar cube dissolves in water /The sugar cube
dissolved in the water..
– e.g. Passive and active knowledge
• 3. A priori versus a posteriori knowledge
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Necessary versus contingent propositions
Analytic versus synthetic propositions
Tautological versus significant propositions
Logical versus factual propositions
• "All husbands are married" > a priori, necessary,
analytic, tautological, logical
• "All Model-T Fords are black" > a posteriori,
contingent, synthetic, significant, factual
4. Knowledge by acquaintance – or first-hand
experience –
Knowledge by description – or by learning from
others
5. Description – attempts to depict accurately certain
features of the world
Justification - how one can justify certain sets of
beliefs
6. Knowledge and certainty - Is it possible for
someone to know that p without being certain that
p?
Origins of knowledge
• Consider the notions of:
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Ideas in mathematics
Innate v. Learned
Rationalism v. Empiricism
‘Tabula rasa’
Skepticism
Notes on early Epistemology
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Sophists - sophistry
Socrates – ‘what is piety?’
Plato – Platonic ‘ideas’
Aristotle – passive intellect and active intellect
Skepticism - knowledge is impossible
St. Augustine – ideas and illumination
Medieval philosophy - "faith seeking reason"
‘Modern’ philosophy – 17 c.
• Faith/revelation and reason
• Impact of modern science on epistemology
• Descartes
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intuition and deduction
“Cogito, ergo sum”
Innate ideas
Duality of mind and body
‘Modern’ philosophy – 18-19 c.
• The empiricists
– Locke – ‘tabula rasa’
– Berkeley
– Hume
• Kant – the “transcendental idealist”
• Hegel – ‘all knowledge must be expressible
in language’
Contemporary philosophy –
20c Continental philosophy
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Husserl – phenomenology
Heidegger – Being and Time
Merleau-Ponty – Phenomenology of Perception
Sartre - Being-in-itself (en soi) v being-for-itself
(pour soi)
• Foucault - The Archaeology of Knowledge
• Derrida - deconstruction
• Dewey – experience = an interaction between a
living being and his environment
Contemporary philosophy
- Analytic philosophy
• ‘The most distinctive feature of analytic
philosophy is its emphasis upon the role that
language plays in the creation and resolution of
philosophical problems’
• Derived from:
– Symbolic logic
– British Empiricism
• Leading to:
– Formal approach
– Ordinary language approach
Philosophy and language
• Formal approach:
– Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, Rudolf
Carnap, Alfred Tarski, W.V.O. Quine, and
early Wittgenstein
• Ordinary language approach
– G.E. Moore, Gilbert Ryle, J.L. Austin, Norman
Malcolm, P.F. Strawson, Zeno Vendler, and
late Wittgenstein
The Philosophy of Languge
versus Linguistic Philosophy
• “ ‘The philosophy of language’ is the name of a
subject matter within philosophy; ‘linguistic
philosophy’ is primarily the name of a
philosophical method. But the two, method and
subject are intimately connected”. (Searle 1971:1)
• The subject has changed according to the ideas
which prevail
• The method is close to that of logic and
mathematics
Philosophy and Semantics
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Commonsense philosophy
Logical positivism
Naturalized epistemology
Perception and knowledge
Realism
Phenomenalism
Anthropology, Sociology and
Semantics
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Humboldt
Boas
Sapir
Whorf
Late Wittgenstein
Bernstein
Psychology and Semantics
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Piaget – developmental psychology
Chomsky – Language and Mind
Jackendoff - Semantics and Cognition
Langacker – cognitive linguistics
Lakoff – Metaphors we live by and Women, Fire
and Dangerous Things
• Penrose – The Emperor’s New Mind
• Patricia Churchland - Neurophilosophy
• Damásio – Descartes’ Error
Non-Vocal Communication
& Semantics
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Sign
Signal
Icon
Symbol
Gestures – Kinesics
Proxemics
Pictures, diagrams etc
The Semantic triangle 1
Real world
‘Mental’
representation
Name
Language universals
Universals coming from innate ideas
- Part of our ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’
- ‘God’-given
- Part of our ‘mind’
• Genetically programmed part of the brain
• Holistic knowledge
Linguistic relativism
• Learning from experience of the world
• Language as a social / cultural ‘contract’
• Languages provide prisms through which we view
the world – therefore all languages provide a
different possibility for understanding the world
• Different social groups filter the language
differently
• Each individual has a unique vision of the world
The Semantic Triangle 2
‘Res’
Concept
Word / term
‘Res’
• Variation of understanding due to:
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Geographical differences
Cultural differences
Social differences
Educational differences
Individual differences
Concept
• ‘Objective’ conceptualisation
– Concrete objects
– Observable actions
– Observable qualities of the world
• ‘Subjective’ conceptualisation
– Abstract ideas
– Mental processes
– Subjective appreciation of the world
• REMEMBER: the distinction between ‘objective’
and ‘subjective’ is fuzzy
Words and Terms
• This is the point of departure for the next
few lessons!