Quietism (Philosophy) from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Contents
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Quietism (philosophy) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Contents 1 Cratylism 1 1.1 See also ................................................ 1 1.2 External links ............................................. 1 2 Language 2 2.1 Definitions ............................................... 4 2.1.1 Mental faculty, organ or instinct ............................... 4 2.1.2 Formal symbolic system ................................... 5 2.1.3 Tool for communication ................................... 5 2.1.4 Unique status of human language ............................... 6 2.2 Origin ................................................. 6 2.3 The study of language ......................................... 8 2.3.1 Subdisciplines ......................................... 10 2.3.2 Early history ......................................... 11 2.3.3 Contemporary linguistics ................................... 11 2.4 Physiological and neural architecture of language and speech ..................... 11 2.4.1 The brain and language .................................... 11 2.4.2 Anatomy of speech ...................................... 13 2.5 Structure ................................................ 14 2.5.1 Semantics ........................................... 14 2.5.2 Sounds and symbols ...................................... 15 2.5.3 Grammar ........................................... 17 2.5.4 Typology and universals .................................... 20 2.6 Social contexts of use and transmission ................................ 20 2.6.1 Usage and meaning ...................................... 21 2.6.2 Language acquisition ..................................... 22 2.6.3 Language and culture ..................................... 22 2.6.4 Writing, literacy and technology ............................... 24 2.6.5 Language change ....................................... 24 2.6.6 Language contact ....................................... 25 2.7 Linguistic diversity .......................................... 26 2.7.1 Languages and dialects .................................... 26 2.7.2 Language families of the world ................................ 26 i ii CONTENTS 2.7.3 Language endangerment ................................... 27 2.8 See also ................................................ 28 2.9 Notes ................................................. 28 2.9.1 Commentary notes ...................................... 28 2.9.2 Citations ........................................... 28 2.10 Works cited .............................................. 32 2.11 External links ............................................. 34 3 Methodology 38 3.1 Relationship among methodology, theory, paradigm, algorithm and method ............. 38 3.2 See also ................................................ 39 3.3 References ............................................... 39 3.4 Further reading ............................................ 39 3.5 External links ............................................. 40 4 Ordinary language philosophy 41 4.1 Central ideas ............................................. 41 4.2 History ................................................ 42 4.3 Criticism ............................................... 42 4.4 References ............................................... 43 4.5 Further reading ............................................ 43 4.5.1 Primary sources ........................................ 43 4.5.2 Secondary sources ...................................... 44 4.6 External links ............................................. 44 5 Quietism (philosophy) 45 5.1 Quietist philosophers ......................................... 45 5.2 See also ................................................ 45 5.3 References ............................................... 45 6 Word 47 6.1 Definitions ............................................... 47 6.1.1 Semantic definition ...................................... 47 6.1.2 Features ............................................ 47 6.1.3 Word boundaries ....................................... 48 6.2 Morphology .............................................. 48 6.3 Philosophy ............................................... 50 6.4 Classes ................................................. 50 6.5 See also ................................................ 50 6.6 Notes ................................................. 50 6.7 References ............................................... 51 6.8 External links ............................................. 51 6.9 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses .......................... 52 CONTENTS iii 6.9.1 Text .............................................. 52 6.9.2 Images ............................................ 55 6.9.3 Content license ........................................ 57 Chapter 1 Cratylism Cratylism is a philosophical theory based on the teachings of Cratylus, also known as Kratylos. Vaguely exegetical, it holds that the fluid nature of ideas, words, and communications leaves them fundamentally baseless, and possibly unable to support logic and reason. Cratylism reaches similar conclusions about the nature of reality and communication that Taoism and Zen Buddhism also confronted. How can a mind in flux, in a flowing world, hold on to any solid 'truth' and convey it to another mind? A fellow Greek philosopher, Gorgias, came to an equally ironic cul de sac conclusion about the nature of human epistemological understanding: "Nothing exists. Even if something did exist, nothing can be known about it; and Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it cannot be communicated to others. And, finally, Even if it can be communicated, it cannot be understood. " 1.1 See also • Quietism (disambiguation) 1.2 External links • What Was Cratylus Trying To Say? 1 Chapter 2 Language This article is about human language in general. For other uses, see Language (disambiguation). A mural in Teotihuacan, Mexico (c. 2nd century) depicting a person emitting a speech scroll from his mouth, sym- bolizing speech Cuneiform is the first known form of written language, but spoken language predates writing by at least tens of thou- sands of years. 2 3 Two girls learning American Sign Language Braille writing represents language in a tactile form. Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Questions concerning the philosophy of language, such as whether words can represent experience, have been de- bated since Gorgias and Plato in Ancient Greece. Thinkers such as Rousseau have argued that language originated from emotions while others like Kant have held that it originated from rational and logical thought. 20th-century philosophers such as Wittgenstein argued that philosophy is really the study of language. Major figures in linguistics include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky. Estimates of the number of languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. However, any precise estimate depends on a partly arbitrary distinction between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken or signed, but any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, in graphic writing, braille, or whistling. This is because human language is modality-independent. Depending on philosophical perspectives regarding the definition of language and meaning, when used as a general concept, “language” may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules. All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs to particular meanings. Oral and sign languages contain a phonological system that governs how symbols are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are combined to form phrases and utterances. Human language has the properties of productivity, recursivity, and displacement, and relies entirely on social con- vention and learning. Its complex structure affords a much wider range of expressions than any known system of animal communication. Language is thought to have originated when early hominins started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality.[1][2] This development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative and social functions. Language is pro- cessed in many different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood, and children generally speak fluently when they are approximately three years old. The use of language is deeply entrenched in human culture. Therefore, in addition to its strictly communicative uses, language also has many social and cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as social grooming and entertainment. Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing mod- ern languages to determine which traits their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later developmental stages to occur. A group