Question:
Wittgenstein and overcoming the bewitchment of language...is it possible to think without language influence?
2009-05-22 16:58:03 UTC
Elaborate disturbances in the air.
Nine answers:
Gadfly
2009-05-22 18:18:19 UTC
As I read W. he would say no. The private language argument is supposed to show that words can not mean an internal psychological state. The only way we can communicate is with language, and language is a rule based activity. So, I interpret the influence language has on the form of our thoughts as a function of the rules one needs to apply in order to express a thought, and this amounts to language competence.



I'm not certain that W. would say that thought is impossible without language, but I think he would say that in order to communicate a thought, to even make it intelligible to ourselves, we must employ language and thus are subject to the rules of that language.



Anyway, that is my take on Wittgenstein, and it is not authoritative by any means.
livemoreamply
2009-05-23 01:10:33 UTC
Before the invention of language, it was possible for a human being to think without language. After the invention of language, that is no longer possible. It's like distinguishing balance. Under normal circumstances, once you learned to walk or ride a bike, those things cannot be unlearned. If you're hurt, or ill, you might lose the higher cognitive functions that allow for use of language. However, I'm responding as though we are talking about normal, functioning human beings.



However, we can learn to use language for our own advantage rather than be trapped or "bewitched" by it. We can learn to think freely, in spite of the limitations of language. The problem is that although we can't think withiout language, language is limited in it's ability to describe the full range of the experience of what it is to be human. (to say that another way: even though there is experience beyond what language can describe, that does not mean we can think without language). What it does mean is that we tend to assume that what languague cannot describe, doesn't exist. And that's the bewitching part. Language blinds us to the truth of our existence. We begin to think that what has been, or is being described by our thinking is all there is. Overcoming the bewitchment, means being open to the possibility that something else, something beyond what we have thought, is possible, even if we have no knowledge of what that is.
yankeegirl
2009-05-23 01:17:10 UTC
I really don't think it is. Even the deaf use language.

Our thoughts, for the most part, take on the semblance of conversation. Language is the vehicle we use to convey our thoughts. Even assigning numerical value to the alphabet, we must still think of ...A is seven. We may see the number, but we think the word. Even symbols have a language based meaning....#, pound sign.



I'm not very familiar with Wittgenstein works. From what I do know, he believed that language was excessively used to no purpose, and so misused that bewilderment ensued, especially among intellectuals. The bewitchment he spoke of was with philosophical language. He favored, from what I've read, the use of common, everyday language.
2009-05-23 01:15:18 UTC
Animals think without language, so far as we know, but their form of thinking was described by Ayn Rand as "range of the moment consciousness." This means when the thought is over, it gains to connection to other thoughts. Even the chimp, which is said to have a rudimentary language, cannot conceptually put 2+2 together on its own. If it could it could then abstract "1" from "2", "3" from 1+2, and 10 from 1+1+1+1etc.



Naturalist Loren Eiseley described this animal thinking-without-language as an "eternal present." The animal cannot abstract from its subconscious thinking. Abstraction puts a concept into the consciousness, where it remains until another concept is added to it. For example "surface" plus "legs" = "table." This would destroy the "eternal present" and put the animal who could do that on par with humans.



But every word in every language (except personal pronouns) contains the metaphysics content of its abstract meaning. Thinking beyond the range of the moment requires the ability to create a word that will "concretize" the abstraction.
jimbeau
2009-05-23 00:54:45 UTC
Yes, it is possible to think without language, but I don't think that 'overcomes the bewitchment of language', Wittgenstein was talking about the ability of language, via a hidden 'logic' of language, if you will, to mislead us. And while it is possible not to use language to think, I'm not sure it is possible to philosophize without language. Hence the difficulty in doing philosophy.
Cole
2009-05-23 01:10:15 UTC
It is not possible to articulate yourself without language, and thus it is not possible to easily articulate your thoughts without language. This is partially illustrated by the idea of Newspeak in Orwell's 1984.



To those who cited a nod as proof: no, a nod is part of our human language. It's not even universally an affirmation.



Expression is debatably language, but it is nigh impossible to think on a higher level or organise your thoughts in any way without the aid of a verbal language.
Naguru
2009-05-23 00:10:54 UTC
Thinking has no language. Similarly laughing has no language. Anger has no language. One can think without language.



Elaborate or wide spread disturbance in the air occurs, when there is severe wind flow.
SAMANTHAA00
2009-05-23 01:44:03 UTC
Yea, if I were to tell you to picture an elephant, did a picture come in your head right now? So pictures aren't exactly language.
*RED*
2009-05-23 00:26:21 UTC
...with a nod of head in a vertical up and down motion...

...the answer is yes...


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