Term Paper on "Individualism Philosophy of Language"

Term Paper 5 pages (1465 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Individualism (Philosophy of Language)

Language is the most important communication tools that humans use in their relationship with their fellow humans. On the other hand, the word, as the fundamental and primordial element of communication, is not only a mean of connection between individuals, but also a way of expression and of philosophical interpretation. Given this, it is natural to ask ourselves whether there are several ways in which a message (and by message I am referring to a collection of words) can be interpreted and how this affects the actual meaning of the word.

The easiest way to define the intrinsic meaning of a word would be to relate it to its definition. According to Higginbotham and his "Elucidation of meaning," "there still may be a place in lexical semantics for some contribution of definitions to meaning." Following on Higginbotham's explanation, there are several further elucidations that need to be interpreted.

The first thing that comes to mind would be whether or not a definition of a word or term is identical with the meaning of that respective term. From a philosophical perspective, this cannot be so. First of all, the definition of a term is a mean by which a word is described. There is no philosophical certitude that the respective definition of a term covers all the characteristics of the word. It simply may be that some of these are left out or that the definition covers the term only from a certain perspective.

On the other hand, we need to refer to the subjectivism of the person or institution that gives the definition. For example, a lawyer would give a different definition of the word property than an economist, simply because he will present a legal perspective rather than an economical one. Nevertheless, both definitions are correct and both definitions cover the term from a certain point-of-view. On the other hand, we cannot state that the definition given by the lawyer is equivalent to the meaning of the word property, because some of the aspects are not taken into consideration.

This brings us to Tyler Burge's description of interpretation based on social usage and on his famous example with Bert and his arthritis, which we should shortly describe here below.

Bert believes he has arthritis in his thigh. Our first stop should be made here, as we investigate from an interpretational and philosophical perspective what his perception relies on. In my opinion, there are two different sides to be taken into consideration. First of all, Bert relates the term with (a) a series of symptoms he has in his thigh, symptoms which he knows are provoked from arthritis, because he has had arthritis in his knuckles for some time and (b) a series of characteristics of arthritis he is familiar with (it tends to get worse in cold weather and it often occurs in the case of older persons, like he is).

However, as I have previously mentioned when discussing Higginbotham's explanations on the elucidation of meaning, a definition is not enough to cover all relevant aspects that a specific term would include. In this case, a definition of arthritis, from Bert's perspective ("a physical problem with articulations, occurring in persons aged 55 and over, aggravated by bad weather," with some additional physical manifestations that would concur with Bert's problems) would not cover a very important aspect: arthritis does not occur in the thigh and it only affects the joints.

The relevant scientific information that arthritis does not occur in the thigh can only be provided by a specialist, hence a doctor. Following Higginbotham, we still need to point out that the doctor's additional information provided is not necessarily enough to circumscribe the entire sphere that would define the term arthritis. Indeed, a gerontologist may point out towards the fact that arthritis occurs only up to the age of 70 and from that time forward it transforms into a different disease, which is referred to as parthritis. Parthritis would thus carry only parts of Bert's description of the term and would constitute itself as a new term containing all the relevant characteristics of arthritis, with some additional ones.

This is the point where Burge introduces a second situation: Bert lives in a world in which he "proceeds from birth through the same course of physical events that he actually does, right to and including the time at which… READ MORE

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