ER Emmet
Language and Bewitchment Chapter 2
It is not, I think, the case that all philosophizing is a battle against linguistic bewitchment, but it is nevertheless inescapable that language must be the medium of all philosophizing, or at least of all philosophizing that is communicated. We can only analyse concepts in terms of words, we can only learn to handle them by studying the use of language. As a preliminary to philosophizing in general, therefore, we shall investigate in this chapter the sense in which, and the ways in which, it may be said that our intelligences are bewitched by the use of language.
The study of the use of language is notoriously a delicate business. On the whole most people take it for granted and do not to any considerable extent subject the language they use and the ways in which they use it to a critical analysis or inquiry. This may be largely due to the fact that by the time an individual reaches the age of reflection or speculation he has learnt, by a process of which he has hardly been conscious at all, how to speak and use at least one language. We can most of us remember, if only perhaps rather vaguely, our first steps in Latin or Geometry, but I doubt whether anyone can remember his first steps in learning how to use his own language.
No comments:
Post a Comment