Reflections on what Language can tell us about Existence

At first consideration, it seems that language reports things about the world around us, allowing human beings to signify aspects of the world. But it also seems that language does more than just report about things and conditions of the world; I am inclined to say that language is fundamental in structuring our observations and consequently, our interactions with the world. What I mean by this is our understanding of the world is perhaps completely dependant upon how we report and structure perceptions with language. Take for example this sentence: "Maggie is the dog in my house." 'Maggie' is a name that is given meaning by the word “is” ("to be"). So 'the dog in my house' is a predicate of Maggie. This seems clear enough. I walk into my house, see this black furry thing, which I have labeled 'dog' by the conventions of the English language. Further more, this individual is a particular dog, and my name for this particular dog is Maggie. "Maggie", "dog", and "house" all seem to be terms that refer to objects in the world. But terms like "the" and "my" do not seem to be words that directly correspond or refer to objects in the world. What do they have to do with the way language tells us things about existence?

It seems that these two terms are examples of relational terms. This means they are terms that relate the speaker to any kind of object or objects in the world. We’ll start with the harder of the two to explain: “the.” “the” indicates a singular object, specifically a particular out of a class of things. So for example “the dog at my feet.” It seems that someone needs to be designating the singularity of such a term that is preceded by “the” and in this sense “the” is a language construct that is used by speakers a tool to designate the individuality of things that are inconvenient to name. By this same token, “my” is also a word-tool that allows for the speaker to identify a particular out of some multitude of items (my apple), only “my” also possesses the characteristic of designating possession of an object in the world. But I think it is important to understand that some pieces of language report on the world, and some other pieces are used to explain our relation to the world. This leads to the idea of what words actually inform us about existence? Nouns report on the existence of the objects they refer to (in cases like unicorns, I’d say these nouns report on the existing hypothetical ideas about the non-existing object/class of object). Articles, adjectives, and pronouns do not actually refer to objects existing in the world. They do, however, report on the speaker or subject’s relationship with existing objects.

Study Questions 2

5. A simple symbol is a symbol that "designates a certain particular" with the use of one symbol. Names are simple symbols because they refer to one object, such as the Statue of Liberty. They simply refer to an individal object. A complex symbol is a symbol made up of constituent simple symbols which all have fixed meanings. A simple symbol's meaning seems less fixed unless one has had experience with the object that is being referenced.

9. The argument for the difference between a name and a description is that when you try to interchange a name with a description (even a description that seems to be identical to the name) in a proposition, it fundamentally changes the proposition. The truth value possibly changes.

10*. "Scott" is a description when it refers to "the author of Waverly." In this case, Scott is a description with it foundation on the term "author" which in no way refers to the actual individual person. "Author" is a general term with a fixed meaning available to all English speakers which is not specific to Sir Walter.
"Scott" as a name only refers to the who person who is called "Scott," which is not some general meaning available to all. 'Is' is used as a predicate in the case of description; 'Is' is used for identity in the case of a name--for example, Sir Walter is Scott.

14. Denying 'the present king of france is bald' comes in 2 flavors: it is not the case that there is an individual who fits into the description "present king of france." OR it is not the case that there is an individual who fits the decription "bald king of france."
Scott names someone, so he cannot be denied his humanity on the basis that Scott does not exist. The only way his humanity can be denied is if he is not a human.

Some reactions to: Betrand Russel's Existence and General Propositions

Russel states in his essay that existence is exclusively a predicate for propositional functions, which rules out individual cases from possessing the property of existing. In order to clarify this statement, we need a context for this term 'existence.' Apparently existing is different from living (this seems to be an understandable confusion, since these terms get bundled up in common expression). In this formulation, existing is a more basic characteristic that applies to the categories of things. Classes of things can exist; this predicate is for a specific and fundamental function. To say that 'dragons do not exist' seems to be a more basic statement than 'dragons breathe fire.' At first glance, existence is the predicate (property) that is esentially necessary for all other predicates to follow and be true. This seems intuitive--if dragons don't exist, then how could they breathe fire? But Russel asserts that if dragons did not exist, then it would still be correct to state that they do breathe fire, because there would be no individuals to support the negation of the claim, which would make it false, and the original claim (dragons breathe fire) true. This seems like a tricky way out of something that intuitively makes sense. I think it is logical to assert that if there is an individual that breathes fires, it belongs to an existing class of things. Revision: Russel does suggest that individuals exist, but it is not a propety that they possess, but rather a property of the class.

Day 1

Still waiting for the anthology to arrive in the mail.