scholarly journals Wittgenstein and Heidegger: Language as universal medium and inexpressibility of semantics

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-137
Author(s):  
Milos Sumonja

In this paper I will try to show that Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger defended conception of language as a universal medium in both phases of their work. Both philosophers believe that we are ?prisoners? of the language that we speak, so that we can not step outside of it and describe the semantic relationships of language and the world from metalinguistic point of view. For both thinkers the basic problem is of methodological nature: for, if we can not speak about the relationships between language and the world, then how can we say that we can not speak about the relationships between language and the world? I will argue: a) that the universalism of early Wittgenstein and late Heidegger is transcendentally motivated, and that they both deal with the problem of inexperessibility of semantics by invoking the language of poetry as a way to express a universalist point of view, and b) that the universalism of late Wittgenstein and early Heidegger is pragmatically motivated, and that the difference between two philosophers is that early Heidegger accepts, while late Wittgenstein rejects semantic paradox of universalism. For early Heidegger inexpressibility of semantics is evidence that there is something that eludes the ordinary language and that that something has to be grasped by use of special method, for late Wittgenstein it is the evidence that there is nothing that can not be expressed in ordinary language and that the problem of inexpressibility of semantics is a pseudo-problem.

Dreyfus argues that there is a basic methodological difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, a difference that derives from the different goals and practices of each. He goes on to argue that being a realist about natural entities is compatible with pluralism or, as he calls it, “plural realism.” If intelligibility is always grounded in our practices, Dreyfus points out, then there is no point of view from which one can ask about or provide an answer to the one true nature of ultimate reality. But that is consistent with believing that the natural sciences can still reveal the way the world is independent of our theories and practices.


Sincronía ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol XXV (79) ◽  
pp. 71-95
Author(s):  
Carlos Alberto Navarro Fuentes ◽  

The objective of the essay is to follow the tracks of silence philosophically, as multiplicity not reducible to unity; there are instances of silence, not silence, neither objectively nor subjectively considered; it is not an 'object' or a 'subjective experience'. Recognize the relevance of silence based on its apparent irrelevance, and, nevertheless, point out the importance that it can have in the attempt to lead to philosophical reflection and to philosophize in general what is essential in it: THINKING. The proposed path requires LISTENING to language, rather than taking for granted the immediate disposition and transparency with which the world appears to us. To do this, we will reflect on excerpts from works written by three thinkers who lived 'war' up close: Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929). This work proceeds peripathetically, alone, reflections emerge in the middle of a world that crumbles between the complexity and destruction that technique and modernity have brought. It is undertaken by welcoming resonances, sensations, representations, images, verses and musings, reflecting in the midst of daily daze. Is there a logical-grammatical silence or an ethicalmystical-liturgical silence? Is silence equivalent to an impossibility of saying or is it the result of an impossibility of saying itself, which does not say when what it most wants to say? Silence of existence or silence in the face of events that threaten to overwhelm us? Is silence silent or is being silent?


Author(s):  
Diana E. Gasparyan ◽  

In this article, it is shown that in some theories defending the non-reductive nature of the firstperson perspective it is possible to find a very inconsistent attitude. Such theories are associated by the author to a so-called moderate naturalism. The article demonstrates the difference between moderate and radical naturalism. Radical naturalism completely abandons the idea of subjectivity as unobservable from a third-person perspective. On the contrary, moderate naturalism defends the irreducibility of subjectivity, but believes subjectivity to be a part of the nature. As a case of moderate naturalism, the article considers the approaches of Lynne Baker and Thomas Metzinger. Exemplifying these approaches to the first-person perspective, it is shown that in the case of certain work strategies focused on the first-person perspective, it is possible that a so-called description error may appear, by which a description error of subjectivity — when it is placed in the world as a part of nature, existing according to its laws — is understood. The logic of this error points to one of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s statements about the incorrect placement of the eye in the perspective of the eye view itself. If the first-person perspective is introduced as a point of view (or a point of observation), then its subsequent shift to the observation result area leads to description error. If there is no observation, as well as no viewpoint, we lose the very idea of first-person perspective and actually take the position of radical naturalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrey L. Andreev ◽  
Irina V. Lashuk

The article is based on the results of the study “Young people in the post-Soviet space: pictures of the world, values, strategies of self-realization”, the empirical basis of which were sociological polls conducted in a comparable manner, conducted in October 2017 – February 2018 among the students from leading universities in Russia and the Republic of Belarus. The analysis of the data was carried out from the point of view of the problem of the internal consolidation of the “Russian world” and the prospects for a change of generations in the elites of the post-Soviet states (in this context, the student contingent of leading Russian and Belarusian universities is viewed as a kind of protoelite group). A comparison was made of the world pictures of Russian and Belarusian students, their social perceptions and value orientations, peculiarities of Russian and Belarusian identity, personal self-actualization strategies, including the choice of place of residence and the level of emigration attitudes. Both similarities and differences in the mentality of young Belarusians and Russians are revealed. In particular, the differences in the perception of the arrow of time, as well as in the emotional relation to the concept of “state”, revealed during the study are of great importance. Based on the results of the analysis, the article shows that the ideas about the life of Russian and Belarusian students are largely similar, but the relations between Russia and Belarus in the picture of the world of Russian and Belarusian youth are asymmetric. The article discusses the possible consequences of the difference between the pictures of the world and the value attitudes of student youth in Russia and Belarus for the fate of the “Russian world”.


Author(s):  
Viktor O. Melnikov ◽  

In social science, there are two approaches to analyzing sociopolitical movements as a manifestation of the modern civilization crisis. The difference between them lies in understanding of the human development process. The substantial approach seeks and finds a single basis in the historical process, and then deduces all social life phenomena from it. The non-substantial approach, on the contrary, considers that such a foundation (substance, essence) does not exist and, therefore, its search is meaningless. Following opposite methodological positions, the representatives of these two approaches variously explain the phenomena of social reality. For instance, from the standpoint of the non-substantial approach, the modern civilization crisis is declared to result from a combination of random factors: technological changes, the hegemony of one or another discourse, the change of the world hegemon in the core-peripheral relations, etc. Hence, from this point of view, the crisis becomes fundamentally inexplicable. Changes that have occurred in the nature of the organization, the forms of activity and the ideology of sociopolitical movements in this case also become random and, as a result, cannot be comprehensively explained. The substantial approach considers the modern crisis to be a result of objective processes taking place in the very foundation of society (primarily in the development of universal labor). Consequently, sociopolitical movements are a form of manifestation of this crisis. The paper emphasizes that differences of these approaches do not have a purely theoretical character, because it is about developing a strategy to overcome the current crisis of civilization, i.e. about the future of mankind.


Author(s):  
Adem Olovčić

This paper focuses on language as a medium for a critique of the traditional metaphysical concepts, expressed in the philosophies of two contemporary philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, where the language is treated as a framework for understanding the world in a multitude of its, for philosophy significant determinants. Although Heidegger, in his philosophy, was primarily concerned about the question of the being, he seeks that sense in thought, which took him away to language, as the only place where the given questions can be examined. Considering that the truth of the being cannot be expressed in everyday, linguistically and instrumentally conceived language, Heidegger will in his thought reach the language of poetry, as place were the understanding of the truth of being and its related concepts is possible. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, will focus in philosophical thought on the problems of language, which, in his philosophy, will culminate in the notion of a language game. With this term, Wittgenstein, first of all had in mind the interconnectedness of the use of language and the life practice. Still, he did not think of a language as an everyday – practical instrument of communication, but rather, as a place where linguistic definitions of language, everyday life practices and real life events meet.  In doing so, these thinkers, through their interpretations of linguistic issues, have reached a point in which is possible to understand their encounter.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-53
Author(s):  
J. Csapó ◽  
Cs. Albert ◽  
G. Bakos ◽  
Á. Nagy ◽  
M. Szabari ◽  
...  

Abstract Earlier we determined the colostrum and milk composition of cows after single- and twin-calving as well as the changes in the composition as a function of postpartum time. It was established that the dry matter, protein, whey protein, and immunoglobulin-G (IgG) content of the first-milked colostrum immediately after calving was significantly higher with twin-calving cows than with single-calving animals. As regards the other components, there were no significant differences among the animals. During the last years, we managed to collect the first-milked colostrum from five cattle after triplet-calving. The composition of these samples were determined by the methods we used earlier at twin-calving animals, and the results were compared to the colostrum composition of single- and twin-calving animals. It was found that although as an effect of triplet-calving the protein and IgG content of colostrum increased, the difference was not significant between twin- and triplet-calving animals. We are aware that others have not reported data from the point of view of the colostrum composition of twin-calving, and in the case of tripletcalving our results are unique in the world. In our publication, we report on the results of our investigations.


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