Is there any reason to believe that one language might correspond more completely to reality than another? I suppose what I am asking is first, can any language truly describe the world outside of us as it is (as opposed to how we want it to be) and second, if so what would that language be like?
If one considers mathematics to be a form of language could it not relate the world to us with more clarity and certainty than, say, english or swahili?
Ultimately, isn’t language merely a reflection of how we perceive the world, and it is not necessarily the case that any language allows a perceiver the ‘understand’ what it is he or she perceives?
At Imp’s behest I must add some declaritive sentences to this post or have it moved. So much for Socrates and his questions.
So, in an attempt to answer my own questions lest this post get moved, let me add the following.
Language presupposes that things have an essential character which we, as human beings, can not only perceive but translate via certain thoughts. Thoughts correspond to perception via a habit, or consistency of usage. This is not to say that what we think, and the words we use to think with necessarily form the the world around us, but it is often assumed that what we might call physical matter corresponds to our thoughts so as to offer a Definitive understanding of that which we perceive.
In other words, we think that we can have knowledge because we think language contains a composite of inherent truth. Not only can we have knowledge of the truth but we believe we can communicate this truth through language.
If you are familiar with Hume you may see what I am claiming here. When we have any term that we assume relates to an object in the world around us, and we assign what we think is a definitive meaning to that object as it appears to us, all we can ultimately report is how that object is sensed by us linguistically, in terms of words we agree on beforehand as representing certain ideas.
We associate words with ideas just as we associate ideas with a corresponding impression of those things we perceive. But there is no reason to think we can perceive the essential character or essence of a thing (if there even exists an unchanging essence) so there is no reason to believe that what we communicate, via language, shares anything in common with the world except as any given language dictates it should.
In English there is the idea of the denotative and the connotative. The denotative would be our attempt at defining the essential character of a thing. The connotative would be more of the common usage of the world to certain people. So, in English at least, there is a distinction. But it is a false one, because there is 1) no proof that we can perceive a things essential character to define it. 2) Even if we could, by defining it we must use other words which then entails other ideas and other perceptions thus muddling or possibly negating this supposed essence we hope to communicate. (This is to say, everything becomes related to everything else via language, but there is no reason to think such relations exist if every particular thing has an essential character or property which differentiates it) 3) If a language is learned, then how we assume to know the world is done by habit, and habit alone.
Of course, it would seem to me that if this were the case, what I have just written would as well appear as gibberish (perhaps it does). If it does or doesn’t, is it because words can fully encapsulate an object and render knowable, or is it because words simply supply their own meanings to any given person, without regard to objective truth?