(no subject)

[novapsyche]

Does the logic (i.e., the syntax) of a language determine what philosophy will come from that language? Could Greek philosophy have come from the Germanic or Romance languages?

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

IMO it has an inevitable and strong impact, at least indirectly. Sometimes it even has a direct influence; Tibtan, Indian, and Jewish philosophy are affected by their language's alphabetic and grammatical configuration.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind also the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I can only imagine that grammar as well as scope of vocabulary influences this.

[hyparxis.livejournal.com]

all of those are Indo-European languages.

they all originate in Sanskrit.

sanskrit tri is the English three.

[vaxjedi]

That's a pretty controversial topic. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that the nature of a language influences or even directs thinking of those speaking the language. Most linguists nowadays feel that the 'strong' version of Sapir-Whorf probably doesn't hold any water, but the 'weak' version (i.e. that the language has some sort of effect on thought processes) probably does.

On the other side, Chomsky's theories of Universal Grammar would contradict that to a certain extent, as they state that certain parts of grammar are universal and thus you wouldn't see a change in thought because those parts are hardwired in. Thus think dictates language, not necessarily the other way around.

Additionally, studies of natural languages show that syntactic similarities happen in disparate cultures. For instance, on some levels, English and Japanese are very similar, with just a slight change in word order direction. But the 'Japanese' word order direction is found in almost language families, regardless of the culture that spawned them. Thus, these constructions are probably not culturally based. The weak version of Sapir-Whorf seems to apply most words and their meaning, not how they are put together.

[hyparxis.livejournal.com]

"that the language has some sort of effect on thought processes"

it took how many PhD mooks to figure THAT out?

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

I think different *cultures* -- time, place, language, economics, religion, etc., etc. -- produce different philosophies, rather than simply the grammar itself.

I don't think a fundamental linguistic difference between French and German can explain the differences between Heidegger and Camus, or between Voltaire or Rousseau and Kant or Goethe or Marx or Wagner. America has the same grammar as England, but different literature and philosophy.

The Greeks were the first people to really ask Why? and try to use reason to explain things. Why ask why -- and how? That's one of the great mysterious of human civilization. But once DO you have Why?, you (eventually) (can) have Descartes, Kant, Mills, Marx, Wittgenstein, Rawls -- and Popper.

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

To some extent, definitely. -Not only syntax but semantics and what can be described by the language, as well.

A language does not have any words for concepts which are not embodied in the thought processes of those who speak and form/create the language by their usage of it, and almost any language has several words which cannot be translated into other languages which lack a similar concept- at least not fully enough for the translation to be considered adequate. Bushido would be one that comes to mind for me; the Western conceptualization of what constitutes 'honor', 'face', etc., cannot be agglomerated in such a way as to explain bushido to the Western mind; one would have to live it, partake of its essence, to understand it. The concept of zen goes even father than this, as no complete and workable defintion can be verbalized even in any of the languages to which it may be considered native.

As far as syntax:

All of the Western tongues (actually, to the best of my knowledge, all of the languages so far created by humanity), enforce the paradigm of cause-and-effect by the syntax of subject-verb-object (which, even if the subject, verb, and object are in a different order in the sentence structure of a particular language, nevertheless still perform the same function and retain the same relationships to one another): Something acts, there is action, something is acted upon, something results from action.

Most languages enforce the paradigm of moving, measurable time by the use of various forms of past, present, and future tenses.

The subject-verb-object syntax also tends to impose a paradigm of active-vs.-passive, as well as the paradigm of time, as it is far easier to show just one thing acting on another than it is to show two things acting on each other simultaneously. In verbal communication in particular, there is no mode which truly shows simultaneity (from the same person speaking; obverlapping voices of different speakers, "of course", happen at the same time), but one of the things would be given dominance (in the sentence, if nowhere else) by being presented first.

That's just a few answers that occur to me off the top of my head...

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

i'm told mandarin and cantonese have no time tenses, concepts and relationships between concepts that are completly alien to me and impossible to get my mind around in english ...i'f i was a linguist and likely to write a paper, i'd contrast Chinese/English or Lakota or Dine/English or mix it up. i could make a pretty good case of it.