To me, it's message is that there are experiences that are not reducible to language, not concepts. For me, concepts, ideas, are creatures of language. I think the distinction is important. — T Clark
But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust
To me, it's message is that there are experiences that are not reducible to language, not concepts. For me, concepts, ideas, are creatures of language. I think the distinction is important. — T Clark
But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust
But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust
Sure. That's what happens. Experiences go in one end of our minds and come out concepts at the other end. — T Clark
For me (and perhaps this is where T Clark and I may differ) qualitative ideas in experience interact to form concepts but have no form themselves. — Possibility
As for what we can describe without language, isn’t this what art is for? — Possibility
I get what you're saying, but unless one assumes that all life is endowed with language, then language appeared at some point in time after life appeared. — javra
I think that such a starting point should only be seen provisionally, and as an artificial imposition on what is otherwise a dynamic flux. — baker
Besides, rare as they might be, novums - new features - perpetually occur, thereby the evolution of any living language, and how are novums not invented? - javra
But most things that seem new are actually made of old, already existing things. — baker
You and I don't generally see these things the same way. It seems like you are using "qualitative idea" as your version of what I am calling "experience." I think that's misleading. As I said, to me, a concept, an idea, is a linguistic entity. — T Clark
As for what we can describe without language, isn’t this what art is for?
— Possibility
I think you and I are in general agreement, but the use of the word "describe" bothers me. Descriptions are generally done with language. Again, I think that will be misleading, perhaps not to you and me, but to others. — T Clark
Yep, the Scandinavian word "Lagom" — Ansiktsburk
I love this word! I have been using ‘accurate’, but found it far too scientific to describe this dynamic quality of balance and sufficiency in one’s perspective.
English language use demonstrates a reluctance to name the relative quality of an unaffected idea. Lagom cannot be qualified as a concept until its value/significance is determined in relation to the quality of affected experience. So we translate lagom as a relative value in idiomatic form: ‘just the right amount’ or ‘less is more’. But each of these idioms alone is insufficient to describe the relative quality that is lagom. — Possibility
More broadly, I've wondered in the past if there are actual aspects of fundamental reality that are only grasped by speakers of specific languages through words and expressions in their respective languages... — Noble Dust
Not to be dramatic or self-important, but this "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" is exactly the same idea that I've felt intuitively for years without any special knowledge of the subject; I had never heard of this specific hypothesis before now. I have no expertise or argument to use to back up this intuition. — Noble Dust
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