Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [linguistics]

83 questions
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Is the truth a privative?

A privative is the absence of something, and as such doesn't exist. So cold is a privative, as it is merely the absence of heat. This question is inspired by this answer about a single noun for an honest person. It seems to me that the truth is…
Matt Ellen
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How can one refute John Searle's "syntax is not semantics" argument against strong AI?

There are many refutations of John Searle's Chinese Room argument against Strong AI. But they seem to be addressing the structure of the thought experiment itself, as opposed to the underlying epistemic principle that it is trying to illustrate.…
Alexander S King
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Does Google's latest translation tool support Jerry Fodor's Language of Thought Hypothesis?

Google recently updated their translation tool so that it can now translate between language pairs that it hadn't seen before, something they're calling "zero-shot translation." See here for the full paper and here for a summary. For example, they…
Alexander S King
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How does language alter our experience of the world?

I was thinking — if we didn't have words our experiences would be different somehow. It seems to me that perhaps words are limiting our experiences because as soon as we relate an experience to a word it becomes entrenched, explored, all the…
Daniel
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How can I develop my critical thinking skills?

I am a freshman engineering student going to college. I want to learn how to think critically and to become a critical thinker and a sharp arguer. I am interested in philosophy, because I am curious about the world, creationism, and everything, and…
Andy
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Why would Wittgenstein say we can't have a perfect language?

I have been reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and my question is how does he come to realize that we can't have a perfect language. For instance I would say math is a perfect language because one can never mistaken 5 to mean 3 or…
Sean
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Is mathematics a language?

Galileo gave the metaphor that the natural world is written in the language of mathematics, but is mathematics even a language?
Geremia
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What came first, language or consciousness?

What came first, language or consciousness? Has any philosopher said that language gives us consciousness by allowing us to communicate with ourselves and therefore giving us choices that we did not have before? And on the other hand, what has…
Sean
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Is music just another language?

In this video (starting around 00:28:30) the interviewer, Bryan Magee, and Noam Chomsky discuss musical composition as a form of thinking without language. But it seems trivial to me that music is a language like any other: a set of sound symbols…
Alexander S King
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Is Compatibilism just a word game?

I understand compatibilism to mean that an action can be free if it is self-determined by the agent, even if it would have been impossible for the agent to choose any other action. Consider the following analogy. Person A is a slave who has had…
monster319
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Can the oldest man in the world die?

In the news, I read "Recently, the oldest man in the world died." I know the intended meaning of the above sentence, but language wise it might be kind of a stretch. Is this a sentence where the descriptive and the causal theory of names disagree on…
Nikolaj-K
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Is Architecture a Language?

I am puzzling over this question awhile, and I can’t find any good, clear reference on the topic without going way to deep into linguistics and getting too abstract. Can anybody explain to me if architecture can be considered a language?…
user40208
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Isomorphism vs homomorphism in the Tractatus' picture theory of language

People often mention that there is an isomorphic nature between language and the world in the Tractatus' conception of language. As far as I can see it, according to Wittgenstein (it's been a few months since I actually read through it, so apologies…
Evan
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Have I got Saussure's distinction between the form and substance right?

I've read several texts on the topic but I'm still not sure whether I got the concept right. Saussure says that language is a form, not substance. I understand that as saying that language is closer to a mathematical system (a natural law) than to a…
Probably
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How do we understand and fix reference for scientific units of measure?

Saul Kripke provides us with a clear way of how we understand and use names in Naming and Necessity. While this solves the problem of how we attribute and understand proper names an interesting question arises when we look to examine scientific…
Mr. Mcnut
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