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The Role of language on the way of thinking and philosophizing

Language – instrument for mutual understanding, thinking and philosophising

“My language is my world.” L. WittgensteinLanguage can make the understanding clear or unclear. Discursus – specific view, look on realityLanguage catch ontology: “what exists” - substantives (in medicine “nosology” – “creation” of illnesses from symptoms and

other signs) “how it exists” - adjectives “logic” - gramarAssociation (reading between the lines)Delineation (Allan Watts – The Way of Zen) borders between concepts“Betrayal” of language: homonyms, synonyms No distinguished of logical types – paradoxes (liar paradox)Scientific language, philosophical jargons

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The Role of language on the way of thinking and philosophising

German language and philosophy:• compound word (e.g., Da-sein)Chinese:• No differentiation of word types, no inflection, suffixes, prefixes,

“concept writing”• Czech – double negation (English before Newton)

Various forms of philosophizing:

Myths and pseudomyths (religion) (Parmenides, Plato) “artistic pole” (continental philosophy – Sartre,

Heidegger …, Klíma, Kundera)x

Plain explanation (Aristotle …) “exact pole” (…. analytical philosophy)

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Predecessors of analytical philosophy, empirocriticism, logical positivism and Ernst Mach

*1838 Chrlice near Brno, in previous archbishops castleStudy in Vienna, 1855 - 1860 PhD thesis, 3 years, excellent teacher

1867-1895 professor of experimental physics in Prague (audience at Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Czech national revival)

Study of visual perception and sense of hearingPerception of music, study of shock waves (quickly moving projectiles)

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1879 rector (chancelor) of Charles University

1882 – 1883 split to Czech and German parts

rector of German part1895 professor of “inductive

philosophy” in Vienna 19th – 20th century machism,

empiriocriticismPopular in USA, RussiaTo Russia brought by students

from ZürichW. James (pragmatism)

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Influence to “Vienna circle”Attempt to eliminate pseudoconcepts (concepts

without real meaning) and to construct language in which concepts are directly interconnected with observable phenomena

Elimination of Newton`s “absolute space” (Sensorium Dei)

Machs principle (1896 Ludwig Lange “inertial system”)

Mass of stars – cause of inertial (including centrifugal) forces

1910 Mach distanced himself from Einstein relativity theory

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Logical positivism (the most of the leading ideas of logical positivism can be traced to Mach)

The chief tenets of logical positivism were that:• (1) the only genuine propositions (that are

strictly true or false about the world) are those that are verifiable by the methods of science

• (2) the supposed propositions of ethics, metaphysics and theology are not verifiable and so are not strictly 'meaningful'

• (3) the propositions of logic and mathematics are meaningful, but their truth is discovered by analysis and not by experiment and observation

• (4) the business of philosophy is not to engage in metaphysics, rather, to engage in analysis.

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Some ideas of Ernst Mach• The atom must remain a tool for representing phenomena.

• Physics is experience, arranged in economical order.

• To us investigators, the concept 'soul' is irrelevant and a matter for laughter. • But matter is an abstraction of exactly the same kind, just as good and just as

bad as it is. We know as much about the soul as we do of matter.

• Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexes of sensations) make up bodies.

• Science always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of experience.

• Thing, body, matter, are nothing apart from the combinations of the elements, - the colours, sounds, and so forth - nothing apart from their so-called attributes.

• A piece of knowledge is never false or true - but only more or less biologically and evolutionary useful. All dogmatic creeds are approximations: these approximations form a humus from which better approximations grow.

• Mistakes of some people could be more fruitfull then achievements of others. E. M.

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Analytical philosophy

• Analysis of language (hidden ontology and logic)• Limitation of kinds of questions – exclusion of

meaningless questions. These questions cannot be meanigfully answered (pseudo questions, putative q.)

• E.g., nonsenses for the first sight: Is number Prague yellow?

• More problematic: What is the sense of life? Why is up up and not down? Why there is something and not nothing? Why there is the universe? Why I am I and not somebody else? Pure being and pure nothingness are the same. (Hegel)…

• Hiddeen nonsenses - paradoxes

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analytical philosophy• Metaphysical questions – hidden matters of language or

nonsenses. • Pseudo questions – matter of non perfect language• Example: the liar paradox, generally self referential

statements (definitions) („Everybody has his own truth.”)• Criteria of reasonableness of question – subject of

discussion• According to logical positivism the question is

reasonableness if there are clearly defined possible answers.

• However, these “tame” questions are trivial and non attractive - Countermovement of the rest of philosophy (continental philosophy) – schism (split) in philosophy

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analytical philosophy

Analytical philosophy – disavows from “great spiritual questions”, “central philosophical problems”

Substitution by technical problems of logical and linguistic analysis of language (mathematical reasoning). Philosophy – special branch of science interesting for limited circle of specialists. Purposeless play (why not?) of “dedicated”, artificial (non natural) problems

Continental philosophy – resignation for clarity, cumulative progress, rather poetic language then logical argumentation.

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analytical philosophyTypical turn to language – solving problem by analysis of

language (with its hidden ontology and logic)

1. What is X?2. What is the meaning of term “X”?3. How we use the term “X”?

Question 1. need not have meaningE.g., “What is god?” But: imperfections of language (hidden ontology and logic)

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analytical philosophy

What is analytical philosophy?• A.ph. is not always turn to language and

vice versa (Heidegger)!• Can be defined by its representatives:

Vienna circle (including Praguers): Frege, Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein (?). (Gödel, Tarský …)

• Utilisation of mathematical logic: Pavel Tichý, Pavel Materna