62
votes
Accepted
Since words are defined in terms of other words in dictionaries, leading to infinite loops, does it mean natural languages are meaningless?
Natural languages do not depend in any fundamental way on our learning the meanings of words from dictionaries. No child I know learns to speak, read and understand meanings by memorising dictionary ...
- 35.3k
36
votes
Is a human language a prison for a mind?
One version of what you're asking is, in linguistics/cognitive science, called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There's been a ton of writing and empirical work on this hypothesis.. My understanding (PhD ...
- 461
33
votes
Is every sentence we write or utter either true or false?
Various candidates would be:
self-referential sentences such as
"This sentence is false."
opinion-based sentences such as
"Chocolate is the most delicious ice cream flavor."
sentences where the ...
- 2,460
27
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
The solution is to realise that the problem as posed is based on a false assumption that there is always a clear dividing line between two opposing classifications of degree. Take long and short, ...
- 9,439
20
votes
What is to be understood by the phrase "Israel's right to exist"?
It's referring to the state, not the land or the people, so your example of a pear isn't really applicable. The preamble of the 1988 charter of Hamas (aka "the Islamic Resistance Movement") declares ...
- 301
16
votes
Is every sentence we write or utter either true or false?
The OP asks the following:
Can I write or utter any sentence which is neither false nor true?
Yes. An example would be Tomorrow I will rise at precisely 6 am. That sentence today is neither true nor ...
- 19.2k
15
votes
Accepted
what is the truth value of a sarcastic statement?
Sarcasm is one of the troublesome linguistic phenomena living in a contested no man's land between semantics (the study of language-internal meaning) and pragmatics (the study of meaning in context). ...
- 7,281
15
votes
Accepted
Is Analytic Philosophy really just Language Philosophy
That quote is from Michael Dummett's book, Origins of Analytical Philosophy. A short answer is that according to Dummett, we cannot have a philosophy of anything until we have a clear theory of ...
- 22.2k
15
votes
Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?
An objective statement is a statement about "the thing in itself", with reality as is rather than as perceived. The statement "my computer runs Mac OS" is objective.
I start there ...
- 1,563
14
votes
Why would this not resolve the Sorites paradox?
Your proposed solution does not solve the paradox.
The whole point of the paradox is that the term 'pile' is vague. That is, given an object (e.g. a collection of grains of sand) it is indeterminate ...
- 6,456
13
votes
Since words are defined in terms of other words in dictionaries, leading to infinite loops, does it mean natural languages are meaningless?
The fact that a dictionary defines each word as a loop that includes other words doesn't mean there is no information present in the dictionary. The information about all the words together is encoded ...
- 255
13
votes
Is a human language a prison for a mind?
You're giving too much power to language as a way of structuring lived experience. While there may be some support for a weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, minds are more flexible than ...
- 231
12
votes
Is every sentence we write or utter either true or false?
Is every sentence we write or utter either true or false?
NO. A sentence is "a textual unit consisting of one or more words that are grammatically linked. [... The] words [are] grouped meaningfully ...
- 35.9k
11
votes
What is the truth value of the proposition 'All unicorns are beautiful'?
Your concern is sound ...
In Aristotle's Logic the inference from :
∀x (Fx → Gx)
to :
∃x (Fx & Gx)
is legitimate. In modern logic, this is not; we say that general terms have existential ...
- 35.9k
11
votes
Accepted
How is the meaning of life "recursive"?
I think that the second half of the given Wikipedia passage is just confusing. First, the concept of recursion belongs to algorithm theory and is unhelpful here. Recursion, unlike what is written, is ...
- 7,291
11
votes
Accepted
Is mathematics a language?
It is more than that. Even if we take the Galileo's metaphor literally, he is suggesting that there is a language of mathematics, specifically geometry, not that mathematics, as such, is a language:
...
- 42.3k
11
votes
What is to be understood by the phrase "Israel's right to exist"?
The reason Israel demands that the Palestinians recognize Israel's so-called "right to exist" is that in so doing, they would officially relinquish any and all claims they have on the land they owned ...
- 7,473
11
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
Natural is one of those words that fit the description of what John Austin called trouser-words in his book Sense and Sensibilia. Sometimes you can only understand a word by reference to what it is ...
- 22.2k
11
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
The answer is in the definition of a heap.
I offer the definition that a heap must have at least one layer stacked upon a base layer.
For grains of sand you need at least 3 grains in a base layer to ...
- 211
10
votes
Accepted
Is there a point to arguing about the meaning of words?
In many situations there is. Strictly speaking, a definition can never be "wrong", unless it is incoherent or contains a contradiction, like "dry wetness". But it can be awkward, cumbersome, confusing,...
- 42.3k
10
votes
Is Wittgenstein right when he criticises recursion theory in the Tractatus 3.333?
It is not a criticism of recursion theory and recursive definitions [by the way, recursion theory originated in the 1930s while the Tractatus was written during the first world war and was first ...
- 35.9k
10
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
One solution would be to say that even 1 grain is a heap. That would be defining "heap" more precisely than its informal, intuitive meaning. What does "heap" precisely mean anyway? ...
- 2,347
9
votes
Is 'is' a verb?
What is true of words denoting one sort of concept is not always true of words denoting other sorts of concepts, even if they are generally considered to have the same 'part of speech'.
For instance, ...
- 191
9
votes
Accepted
How to implement the so called 'principle of charity'?
You are right that reading means interpreting, and we can never be sure that we did not misinterpret the author's intentions. But it is as with any human endeavor, we are fallible. The principle of ...
- 42.3k
9
votes
Is music just another language?
The answer is straightforward in the context of Chomsky's universal grammar, which music does not fit. However, the innate grammar structures postulated by Chomsky were not as universally encountered ...
- 42.3k
9
votes
Why would this not resolve the Sorites paradox?
This is all about the difference between natural language and formal language. In formal language, a term cannot be used unless it's well-defined according to the standards of the language. In ...
- 25.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Why would this not resolve the Sorites paradox?
The previous answers betray a lack of familiarity with the literature. Your solution, using the least number principle, essentially works. It is a known argument for epistemism about vagueness, the ...
9
votes
Since words are defined in terms of other words in dictionaries, leading to infinite loops, does it mean natural languages are meaningless?
Many linguists including Chomsky I believe have studied languages up to the point of realizing that there are no set rules as to how languages develop. They just do.
It's technocratic and overly ...
- 2,864
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible