LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERN ERA

(This entry follows my previously posted entry Definitions, Definitions, Definitions!)

Linguistic philosophy is also known as analytical philosophy, and is closely linked to logical atomism and logical positivism. (There is another term for it: philosophical analysis.) The towering figure behind this, or rather all these, is one of my favorite thinkers, Lord Bertrand Russell, who calls it by yet another name: The Philosophy of Logical Analysis. As a structural linguist, I used to study this fascinating subject at Moscow University, and I did familiarize myself with it in great detail. This does not make my job easier, though, as I am trying to draw the reader’s attention to this manifestly worthy subject, but it will take me several time- and effort-consuming stages of work to bring this entry into a proper shape, later on. (Mind you, however, that this is by no means some kind of treatise on linguistic philosophy, and it isn’t even a Russell, or, later, a Wittgenstein, entry. The first topic is too large for consideration in a single entry, like this, whereas if anyone is looking for my notes on Russell or Wittgenstein, they can be found in the Magnificent Shadows section, to be posted later.)

My great interest, as a Moscow University student (ages ago!), in the one-man science of the paroemiology genius Grigori Permyakov has already been given attention in other sections of this book, but, with regard to this particular Philosophical section, it ought to be noted that Permyakov’s structural paroemiology had a distinctive philosophical foundation to it, which I can trace to the linguistic philosophy of one of my best beloved shadows of the more recent origin, whose death, in 1970, happened during my adult lifetime, thus building a bridge between the rather lackluster present and the much cherished and, perhaps, too generously glorified past. I am referring of course to Bertrand Russell, who once claimed that his life had been driven by three overwhelming passions: unrequited love, elusive truth, and agonizing compassion for the pains of mankind.

Any man who is capable of such breathtakingly simple and profound formulation already deserves the title of the philosophe extraordinaire, but Russell is an inexhaustible living well of inspired thinking of the first magnitude, a rarity for this intellectually impoverished age, and his extraordinary linguistic philosophy is a living proof for it, even if taken in isolation from all other accomplishments of his genius.

Here is a long quotation from Russell himself, which explains the origins of his theory of “logical analysis” which is yet another word for his linguistic philosophy. The quotation is severely abbreviated to save space. For the full representation of this quotation, please read Chapter XXXI: The Philosophy of Logical Analysis in Russell’s already profusely quoted History of Western Philosophy.

In philosophy ever since Pythagoras there has been an opposition between men whose thought was mainly inspired by mathematics (Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza and Kant) and those who were more influenced by the empirical sciences (Democritus, Aristotle and Locke). In our day a school of philosophy has arisen that sets to eliminate Pythagoreanism from the principles of mathematics and to combine empiricism with an interest in the deductive parts of human knowledge. From Frege’s work it followed that arithmetic and pure mathematics generally is nothing but a prolongation of deductive logic: this disproved Kant’s theory that arithmetical propositions are synthetic and they involve a reference to time. The development of pure mathematics from logic was set forth in detail in Principia Mathematica, by Whitehead and myself.

It gradually became clear that a great part of philosophy can be reduced to ‘syntax.’ Some suggest that all philosophical problems are syntactical, and when errors in syntax are avoided, philosophical problems are either solved, or shown to be insoluble. I think this is an overstatement, but there can be no doubt that the utility of philosophical syntax is great.

Bertrand Russell’s philosophical path started with logic, moved on to perception, and finally found itself in linguistics, namely, in semantics. This is consistent with the paths of his associates and colleagues, such as Whitehead, Carnap, and Wittgenstein, the last of which wrote this in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: The object of philosophy is the logical (read linguistic: that is what logical boils down to!) clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.(He is saying that ‘philosophy’ means philosophizing.) A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. (The task of all genuine philosophers is to make themselves clear, as he proceeds to summarize.) The result of philosophy is not a number of philosophical propositions, but to make propositions clear.

Wittgenstein eventually came to the conclusion that our whole world exclusively consists of our linguistic experience, which led him to the suggestion that all philosophy is a critique of language. The question of greatest importance to philosophy is why do we use this particular word or expression?

I myself believe that reducing all philosophy to linguistic usage and its analysis may be going too far in one direction, at the expense of others, but this particular direction constitutes a necessary part of philosophical pursuit, a condition sine qua non.

I take a certain pride in my insistence on “definitions, definitions, definitions!!!” even if such an insistence is not entirely original. But giving the due credit to the linguistic philosophers of the twentieth century, I am taking credit for my dogged pursuit of linguistic analysis as the preamble to all examinations, political and philosophical, which has suffered terrible and deliberate abuse at the hands of modern manipulators, for whom linguistic obfuscation is the commonest tool of their trade.