"I am a thing that thinks," as Descartes so famously observed.This, indeed, is what separates us as humans from the animals - we think. More importantly, we think about thinking - we have a self-awareness, a driving force that allows us to ask, "what's it all about?" We are not driven simply by the instinctive drive to survive long enough to pass on our genetic code. Dasein (our specifically human being-in-Being) is unique in its awareness of itself, and further an awareness of and a relationship with its own end that allows the existence of concepts such as temporality.
This matters. Our perception of and relationship to the world is entirely based on Dasein's interaction with other beings. Despair arises when that interaction is an inauthentic relationship, and in an authentic relationship we have a theoretical escape from despair. But what is authentic? That's going to be our subject of discussion.
This matters. Our perception of and relationship to the world is entirely based on Dasein's interaction with other beings. Despair arises when that interaction is an inauthentic relationship, and in an authentic relationship we have a theoretical escape from despair. But what is authentic? That's going to be our subject of discussion.
May I propose that the distinction between humans and animals is not an innate property of pure thought, it's abstract language paradigms. These allow us to do something far more important than conceptualise, it allows us to express and critically assess concepts. This ability to share and evaluate our thoughts is far more important than our independent innate conceptual skills. Consider this, what conceptual and analytical skills would we have if isolated from language? I would argue few more than a dog.
ReplyDeleteGood point. It's obvious that our own language games are incredibly important to our being. However, I don't agree that we would be "reduced to animals" if we lost our language. Our language is how we think rationally. It's the only way we know how to think... But what "conceptual and analytic skills" does a dog have? I don't know. Nobody knows, because no person is a dog. If that's something you're interested in I'd suggest "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?" by Tom Nagel... Consider the fact that a dog has much more olfactory prowess than we do, presumably if they were to develop a language it would be completely unintelligible to us because our language is visually rich but olfactorally very limited. The same argument is even more potent in the case of bats. I would also argue that our language is built on our ability to consider our "being in the world". We are an embodied subject and as such can consider what it is to be human. I could achieve simpler tasks with a much simpler language... It is only as I recognise my condition that I need to build my language to make sense of my situation. I fully agree with you that we would lose what it "is" to be human if we lost our language ability(hard to see how that would happen given what we know from modern linguistics) but we can't talk about what that would be like since we don't have the pieces to take part in those language games. :)
ReplyDeleteI concur with Dave.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, what makes Dasein unique is its awareness of itself - yes, we couldn't as "what is it all for" without language, but what makes us unique is that we can ask it.
I would agree with you to an extent in that the conceptual and analytical skills of a dog are not something we have absolute knowledge of. However, if we ask what the dog demonstrates in terms of conceptual and analytical skills, we can arrive at an answer. The dog is quite capable of recognising patterns, and adapting to them. The dog is also capable of making judgements on the basis of the information presented to it. For example, a dog will very quickly assess the nature of any other dog by smell, and decide the nature of it's potential relationship.
DeleteWith regard to the evolution of human language, it is not the case that we actively design words, phrases and expressions often. In fact, we will often choose to express difficult concepts through metaphors and other language 'tricks'. Whilst this is a form of manipulation of language that can express new concepts to a degree, it is indicative of a fundamental lack of ability to 'design' new words.
I would conclude that language as a tool both enables and restricts the ability of humans to think. Consider Putnam's Transendental Idealism, If we cannot concieve of an object, we cannot think about it. The same is true of language. If we cannot concieve of an abstract expression, we cannot think about it. When dealing with the fundamental differences between man and animal, we must remember our humility. Mankind may be capable of a vast number of analytical processes that allow it to derive valid information about itself, it's environment and even it's purpose; but we are as limited in, and by, our calculative mechanisms as we are made free by them. The fundamental questions I would like to ask is not: 'What properties of the mind make us unique?', but 'How did these arise, how do they work and what are the limiting factors upon our mental powers?'.
Thanks. Yes we can observe and note how dogs behave. In the first half of the 20th Century this was how psychology was practised with regard to humans, but that isn't really what Stephen is going for. Also, my point was that we have no idea what it is like to "be" a dog from the first person perspective, we can consider how they behave from our perspective- which zoologists and animal psychologists make their living from doing, but we cannot know how a dog's phenomenology or it's existentialism if indeed it has any. I'm entirely agnostic on that point. I would like to perhaps put a disclaimer on your argument that we don't "design new words or phrases often". I think we do. I don't think anyone has uttered some of the sentences I have written in this comment before, and certainly not in this situation. I realise that you mean "new" in the sense of "new" from the perspective of the language and no, we don't really need to invent new words often, that job has been done for us. It also seems that our grammatical and syntactic awareness are hard-wired into our brains, so I think that if my mind was wiped of all memory of language I had learned and I was deposited on a desert island I could probably construct a rudimentary language using things like onomatopoeia... I would also get names for me, my body and it's various parts... But what would be really interesting from Stephen's perspective would be whether or not I'd conceive of words for things like the self, fate, morality, and the "big why questions". We can see the limits of language very clearly when it comes to things which are outside of our embodied existence... Like logic and mathematics, which have invented their own set of symbols and functions which are different from how we refer to concrete objects. This is because the subject matter for maths is entirely abstract and we have difficulty in conceiving of it... Of course there are different schools of mathematical philosophy which try to explain this, but that's a whole other debate... I think that is an area where we have had to "invent" a new "language" to deal with objects that we don't think about in the "standard way". The area where I think Putnam- and many others in the analytic/naturalistic/Quinean school get out of their depth is in phenomenology... I can't really convey my private experiences in a public medium satisfactorily... For the Quinists, that means they don't "really" exist as they are untestable... What Stephen is talking about is the first person questioning about my existence, my being, and as such they can't really be described adequately by language. Take existential angst for example, it's so hard to describe that we don't usually even bother trying... We can say how to have it but we cannot convey the actual feeling in language. Going back to me on the desert island, I would continue to have phenomenal experiences. I find it very hard to imagine that I'd become a blank slate if I lost my language.
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