[lit-ideas] Re: Welsh "Glas" (Was: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:36:11 -0500
I gave a good example of Julie's inability to distinguish computer code.
She can see the characters that make up the code, but she can't see the
code. It's just gibberish to her.
But it seems to me that Julie is asking a deeper question, namely, is
knowledge (forget ideas) language dependent or does it precede language or
mutually arise out of language? Julie can learn to read code, but knowing
code is not going to give her any knowledge of anything outside of how to
read code. The question, it seems to me, is what is knowing. Do nonhuman
animals know things? It would take a braver man than me to deny that they
do. Do they have language? Hard to say. If they do, it's nothing they
apparently want to share with us. Do pre-language children learn things, do
they come to know things before they know words for them? Seems to me they
do, but then I don't know what knowing means. As an adult, I tend to think
that knowing is nothing more than belief. I accumulate beliefs, discard
beliefs -- some of those beliefs I've examined, but most I haven't. I've
just gone along with them hardly aware I hold them, mostly ignorant of their
implications effects on my behavior. Why I hold to this belief rather than
that one has mostly to do with my history, I surmise. Do we believe things
before we're aware we believe them -- as Julie seems to me to be asking -- I
think I probably do. I use language to explain my beliefs to myself. But
that's about it. Don't know about any of you.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 7:28 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Welsh "Glas" (Was: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
I find it a bit odd that several of you continue to talk about "grue". That
issue was analysed to death decades ago by Anglo-saxon philosophers and
linguists.
There are plenty of other examples that don't require aborigines in Wales
or Australia.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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