Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: chazwin on 28 Dec 2009 05:36 On Dec 27, 4:40 am, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote: > On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:17:37 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote: > > The French make it almost > > impossible to do useful things in an efficient manner. You are not > > allowed to create new words until they are approved by some commission > > years later (can't recall the name). > > Academie francaise. Sorry, I can't do the French characters. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_de_l%27Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3% > A7aise > > This does have advantages. For one thing, the Engs and the Americans > butcher the English language. Real English has a limited set of phonemes, > but the Engs and the Americans have this nasty habit of using every > phoneme from every language. And they're starting to insist that foreign > pronunciations be used. They're completely ignorant that there often are > more than one dialect in a language; for example, Spanish. There is no real English. There never was and there never will be. All languages are an ongoing invention and a negotiation. > > Another benefit is that the Engs (Engs live in Eng-land, right?) and > Americans use words incorrectly, and the incorrect usage becomes > "correct" because they're so fond of "descriptive" dictionaries rather > than proscriptive dictionaries. It's very democratic, the idiots get to > decide what words mean. It's one big Archie Bunker joke. For example, to > "protest" means to testify FOR something. In idiot speak, to "protest the > war" means to speak against the war when the real meaning is to speak FOR > the war. There are no incorrect uses of words just popular, standardised and unpopular ways to apply language. As for your example - correct usage relies not on rules but on the communication of meaning. If we know what Archie Bunker MEANS then his language is effective. > > Lastly, it is hoped that having a panel such as the French Academy would > prevent fad gibberish words like "bling-bling" from reaching the > dictionary. Don't even get me started on how "Ebonics" is being passed > off as English. > > The only real downside to the French Academy is that idiots who don't use > the language properly are called idiots. Is that so wrong? Actually idiots is perfectly accurate as it derives from the ancient Greek word which was used to denote people who are outside of the norms of the polis. The question then is; does the French Academy have the right to standardise the language?
From: chazwin on 28 Dec 2009 05:36 On Dec 27, 4:43 am, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote: > On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 13:23:08 -0800, chazwin wrote: > > On Dec 24, 5:58 pm, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote: > >> On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:05:35 -0800, chazwin wrote: > >> > The 19thC saw the domination of English mainly because nearly all the > >> > decent innovations, discoveries and inventions all came from Britain.. > >> > The French and the Germans had to take a back seat. The Germans > >> > seemed to have concentrated on philosophy whilst the French spent the > >> > whole century licking their wounds after the Napoleonic defeats. > > >> So, Georg Ohm, Heinrich Hertz, Hermann von Helmholtz, Rudolf Clausius, > >> and Heinrich Lenz took a "back seat"? (All big name 19th century German > >> physicist) > > Yep -minor players. > > >> As did Augustin Fresnel, Pierre Dulong, Alexis Petit, Pierre Curie, and > >> Andre Ampere? (Big name 19th century French Physicist) > > > And them too. > > >> How... droll. English Chauvinism is not dead. > > >> Yes, there is a reason why back in the 1960s you had to be able to read > >> a foreign language, usually German or French, to get a degree in > >> physics at an accredited college in the English speaking United States.. > > > Yes but it did not matter which one. In Germany and France English was > > essential. > > >> And after WW II, the only reason why we had a scientific jump on the > >> Russians is because our captured German scientist were better than the > >> Russian captured German scientists. :-D > > > Can I remind you I was talking about the 19thCentury not the 20thC? > > You had me going. I thought you were serious. I see it is just silly > nationalistic posturing. I was 'avin' a laff!
From: chazwin on 28 Dec 2009 05:37 On Dec 27, 5:20 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Dec 26, 11:20 pm, John Stafford <n...(a)droffats.ten> wrote: > > > I have come into this thread late with a poor browser. Excuse me if I > > ask a stupid question. > > > When Latin fell from favor for international communication, scholarly or > > other, in what field (if any in particular) did it fail first? Was Latin > > particularly useful in the physical sciences or the philosophical > > discourse when it began its decline? > > Well, Goethe, Hegel, and Kant didn't write in Latin, and they were > certainly influential in philosophy (and probably not the first to > abandon Latin). In order to abandon it they would have had to use it in the first place. Hume predates the lot of them and I do not think he wrote in anything but English.
From: John Holmes on 28 Dec 2009 05:39 [have had to drop alt.philosophy because my news server hasn't heard of it] chazwin wrote: > On Dec 27, 12:41 am, Robert Bannister <robb...(a)bigpond.com> wrote: >> chazwin wrote: >> >>> All thinking is language dependant. >> >> I have serious doubts about that unless you think that thinking >> you're hungry isn't thinking. > > Being hungry is not the same as realising the feeling and giving a > name to it. That requires thinking and thinking is structured by > language. Giving a name to it is not the same as being hungry and realising what the feeling is. -- Regards John for mail: my initials plus a u e at tpg dot com dot au
From: sjdevnull on 28 Dec 2009 06:47
On Dec 27, 10:16 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Dec 27, 6:21 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > > On Dec 27, 2:16 pm, Marvin the Martian <mar...(a)ontomars.org> wrote: > > > > On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:41:23 +0800, Robert Bannister wrote: > > > > chazwin wrote: > > > > >> All thinking is language dependant. > > > > > I have serious doubts about that unless you think that thinking you're > > > > hungry isn't thinking. > > > > It is a Chomsky thing. > > > > The rebuttal to Chomsky's assertion that thinking is language dependent > > > is simple: Observe how a chimpanzee has an ability to reason that is not > > > too far behind the average human; problem solving and primitive tool use. > > > Since chimps have no language, how is it that they think? Ergo, not >all< > > > thinking is language dependent. > > > I believe that "since chimps have no language" is at least one place > > that your argument falls apart, though I'm inclined to agree that the > > original assertion is incorrect. > > What's your evidence for chimpanzee language? I said "I believe" for good reason; it's not (yet) provable. But each year more is learned about the sophistication of chimpanzee communications. Strictly on the vocal level, they have a series of deferential pant-barks and pant-grunts used when approaching superiors, personally distinctive pant-hoots used as food calls and (with differing intonation) as loud, aggressive dominance calls, calls used as alarms or during copulation, etc. They also have a series of gestures ranging from begging for food by presenting open hands, kneeling and showing open hands in deference, signs indicating they wish to be scratched, etc. Many of these are passed down from one generation to the next-- beginning at a very young age, a baby chimp will use its mother's deferential barks and grunts when approaching a dominant male. We've not deciphered all that's going on, but PET scans certainly indicate that during times that appear "communicative" they sow a lot of activity in parts of the brain associated with language in humans (e.g. Broca's area and Wernicke's area), while when engaged in non-"linguistic" problem solving those areas aren't particularly active. Back on the original question, Chomsky held that language shapes all thought and that chimps are incapable of language; to me, those statements are mutually inconsistent unless you believe that chimps are incapable of any level of thought (an assertion that I find patently ridiculous). That does not, of course, require that you accept that chimps are linguistically competent; you could resolve the inconsistency equally well by rejecting the hypothesis that language shapes all thought. |