Kalba ir tikrovė

NAGLIS KARDELIS Vilnius University ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0002-2179-3754 Research areas: philosophy of language, Ancient philosophy, Medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion. DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all84-16 LANGUAGE AND REALITY The relationship between language and reality is the most interesting and most difficult problem in the philosophy of language. It has many aspects, because reality itself is understood and described differently in different contexts of philosophical analysis. For instance, it is possible to investigate what we might call the inner reality of language itself – the immanent nature of language, manifesting itself at various levels analyzed by the science of language. The world of language, revealed when viewed from within language as a closed system and assessed by language’s own internal standards, is entirely different from the world revealed beyond the boundaries of language itself. The immanent reality of language does not coincide with the reality opening up beyond the boundaries of language itself, which language is called upon to make speakable and about which it must speak. The truth of the word as a “thing” of language itself differs from the truth of the thing in extra-linguistic reality: for example, having clarified the etymology of one word or another, revealing the linguistic “truth” about the thing named by that word, we do not thereby learn the truth about the thing itself, existing beyond language, although language can provide us with valuable insights into how we should think about that thing. Or here is another example: although in the immanent reality of language—in the reality of words—the distinction between thinghood and processuality is clearly drawn, appearing at the level of morphology as the distinction between noun and verb, from the perspective of everyday observation it seems to correctly indicate the difference between objects and processes existing beyond the boundaries of language itself; nevertheless, it cannot be regarded as intrinsically—without essential qualifications and corrections—characteristic of extra-linguistic reality itself, which is considerably more complex, stranger, and more mysterious than its surface revealed by everyday experience: for, as the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides claimed, being is monolithically unified, identical with itself, unmoving, and unchanging, while contemporary physicists might perhaps agree with him by saying that all physical reality is so unified that it is impossible to speak at all of strictly localized things separated from one another; moreover, time itself—and with it what we perceive as unfolding in time Articles 331 NAGLIS KARDELIS different events—is merely an illusion of everyday human experience, though a highly persuasive one. Incidentally, this is only one concrete example by which we wished to draw attention to the fact that the “truths” revealed in the inner reality of language itself—in the reality of words, their meanings, and morphological and syntactic forms—should not be uncritically identified with the truth about the world existing beyond the boundaries of language. What we might call the inner reality of language itself is studied more by linguistics than by philosophy (unless we are great admirers of Heidegger), whereas philosophy is called upon to think about the relationship between language and extra-linguistic reality—true reality. It is true that the philosophy of language is also interested in how a linguistic image of the world is established in language and how language reflects and depicts extra-linguistic reality at different levels of its system. Nevertheless, what is most interesting to philosophy is the very radically posed question of the relationship between language and reality. When considering this question, philosophers sometimes fall into two extremes, which we shall now briefly discuss and critique. The first extreme is associated with the view that extra-linguistic reality exists, but that it is either not reflected in language at all or that its linguistic representation is completely distorted and inadequate. Some philosophers who profess this view regard reality and language as two disconnected vessels. According to these thinkers, it is not the case that human beings have no access whatsoever to reality—they have the possibility of experiencing it through the bodily senses, above all sight—but what language speaks of, especially when abstract and detached from sensory content, is not even a distorted representation of extra-linguistic reality, but rather a pseudo-reality, a falsification of extra-linguistic reality. Such a view inevitably leads one to regard language suspiciously, skeptically, and even nihilistically, without expecting that language will ever be capable of revealing the depths and secrets of extra-linguistic reality or of granting the power of philosophical insight. This extreme evaluation of language as, so to speak, philosophically and existentially incapacitated is defective from a logical point of view, because it encounters insurmountable internal contradictions. For if language is in no way capable of touching reality—in other words, if language proves entirely powerless in its relationship with reality—one might ask how a philosopher reflecting on such powerlessness of language could become capable both of grasping it himself and of communicating it to others by no means other than through language, given that theories of the powerlessness of language are expounded in language, in scholarly philosophical treatises. Put more simply, if language were entirely powerless in the aforementioned respect, it would not even be empowered to convey knowledge of its own powerlessness. Clearly, when such theories of the powerlessness of language are formulated by means of language and linguistic thought, it is language—above all linguistic thought—that becomes the measure of the commensurability or incommensurability of language and extra-linguistic reality and—in the person of the philosopher who thinks and speaks in language—the arbiter who employs this measure. Someone blind from birth, after all, is not capable of grasping and 332 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Language and reality assessing the difference between sight and blindness, just as someone without a sense of taste cannot grasp and define the difference between taste and tastelessness. In criticizing this radical interpretation of the relationship between language and reality, one might also ask the question differently: if not language, then by precisely what instrument, whether sensory or supersensory, is the philosopher capable of experiencing the powerlessness of language and conveying knowledge of it to others? Assuming that language and reality truly are like two disconnected vessels, and also assuming that, despite the powerlessness of language, the philosopher nevertheless has some other access to reality—say, the power of the senses or of nondiscursive, nonlinguistic intuition—it nevertheless remains unclear how, with such a powerless language, the philosopher is able to communicate knowledge of the powerlessness of language to others. Thinkers who regard language and extra-linguistic reality as two disconnected vessels encounter yet another insurmountable contradiction. If one maintains that, despite language’s inability to reveal reality, human beings nevertheless have sensory access to it, the vividness of language becomes an inexplicable paradox, as does its power to mediate representations of sensory impressions beyond the senses in the medium of linguistic signs: for every poet and prose writer knows perfectly well the truth that, in the medium of language, it is possible to imitate direct sensory impressions—in poems, novels, and dramas, to paint images with words, to spread sounds and smells, and to convey experiences of taste and touch. For if one assumes that language, as supposedly a radically supersensory medium, has no common measure with the sensory, it becomes unclear how language can make it possible—albeit indirectly, through mediation—to convey subtle sensory impressions accurately and unambiguously. If we acknowledge that it is precisely the senses that provide us with access to reality, then we must inevitably also acknowledge that precisely to the extent and in the manner in which language, as a medium that symbolically mediates sensory impressions, is capable of imitating the sensory, it—together with the unmediated senses themselves—also provides us with a certain, albeit somewhat weaker, access to extra-linguistic reality. Incidentally, as a separate problem arising for philosophers who separate the realms of language and reality too radically, one should consider whether sensory impressions themselves can be experienced in an absolutely pure, linguistically unmediated way. For it is highly probable—or rather, virtually certain—that human beings experience sensory impressions so intensely and richly not only because of the health and strength of the senses themselves, but also because of the supersensory “hue” or “flavor” that the mediating power of the linguistic medium gives those impressions during sensory experience: a physical experience linked with memories, images born of creative imagination, projections of the future, the play of figures of speech, or even certain abstract thoughts—in other words, linked with what is recorded, established, or simply spontaneously born in the medium of language—becomes considerably stronger than a pure physical experience separated from language. Language and destiny 333 NAGLIS KARDELIS Although we cannot verify this directly, it is highly probable that, because of the supersensory—symbolic—mediation and intensification of sensory impressions provided by language, human beings experience even sensory sensations more strongly, richly, and expressively than non-speaking living beings. Language and linguistic thought enable us to reflect on sensory experience and to admire and delight in the strength and richness of sensory impressions. Beings incapable of speaking and thinking linguistically are not granted this privilege. On this occasion, it is worth noting that even those thinkers who undervalue language excessively while greatly overvaluing the senses are able to convey to others precisely through language and only through language—not through the senses, intuitively, telepathically, or by some other bodily or spiritual instrument—their very admiration for the power of sensory experience, as well as the excessively emphasized chasm between “powerless” language and “empowered sovereign” senses. It is obvious that it is precisely language, rather than the senses in themselves, that gives thinkers who deny the power of language the ability clearly to grasp and reflect through thought on the impressiveness of sensory experience. Thus, in fact, we cannot even claim that access to extra-linguistic reality is provided to human beings solely by pure sensation—it would be more accurate to say that such access to reality as is possible for human beings is provided not so much by pure sensations in themselves or by pure language in itself, but rather by language and the senses together, interacting within unified human experience. The second extreme in evaluating the relationship between language and reality is expressed by the view that “true” reality does not exist at all, and that its illusion is established in language, beyond which supposedly there is nothing whatsoever. This view is most often associated with postmodernist philosophy, which has been greatly influenced by the structuralists’ and poststructuralists’ attempt to analyze language as a closed system, each element of which is defined through its relationship with the other elements, rather than by what is—or might be—outside that system. In structurally analyzing the functioning of language as a unified and closed system, it is unnecessary to assume that anything exists beyond this system, because all the elements of the language system, functioning at its various levels, can be clearly defined on the basis of those elements’ relationships with the other elements of the system. The explanations of linguists representing structuralism as to how, on the basis of certain binary oppositions, elements of the lower levels of language are established within the language system—such as phonemes, whose phonological identity is defined not in isolation but in relation to other elements at the same level—were extrapolated by poststructuralists and postmodernists to considerably higher levels of the language system associated with the establishment of meanings and significations. From the postmodernist perspective, the meaning of a linguistic sign at any level, such as a word, is established through certain differential differences defining the relations among signs within the system, rather than through the signifier’s connection with the signified existing beyond language—in “true” reality—for, as postmodernists maintain, self-identical signifieds, which, following the traditional view, we would regard as 334 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Language and reality existing beyond language, are in fact merely an illusion produced by the movement of signifiers within the medium of language itself. Having accepted the postmodernist interpretation of the nature of language, we should understand language as a “flat” and strictly “horizontal”—in other words, merely syntactic—system, while the reality of the subjectively experienced “vertical” semantic level of language, supposedly defining language’s relation to the reality beyond its boundaries, would have to be regarded as merely a linguistic illusion arising from the constant movement of signifiers at the “horizontal”—the level of language’s syntax. Let us take a highly simplified example of a certain hypothetical language system consisting of three elements—a, b and c. According to the usual classical view, the meaning of the language element a in such a system consisting of three elements would be determined by its relation to its counterpart A existing in extra-linguistic reality; correspondingly, the meanings of elements b and c would be determined by their relations to their extra-linguistic counterparts B and C (we have chosen capital letters to mark the counterparts of the language elements a, b and c existing in extra-linguistic reality, emphasizing their greater ontological reality compared with the elements existing in the medium of language itself, marked by lowercase letters). According to the postmodernist view, however, the meaning of the language element a would be unambiguously defined by its relation to the elements b and c; the meaning of element b by its relation to elements a and c; and the meaning of element c by its relation to elements a and b. According to postmodernists, this is precisely how—circularly—the meanings of words used in ordinary everyday language (and in any language generally) are established: for instance, the meaning of the word “tree” is established not as the result of the relation between a certain acoustic or graphic signifier and the tree blooming beyond language (as its signified), but as the result of the horizontal relations of the word “tree” with, say, the words “field,” “soil,” “sky,” “sun,” and so on. Returning to considerations of the relationship between language and reality, we might ask how, according to the postmodernist conception of the nature of language just briefly discussed, the meaning of the word “language” itself is established in language. Unlike other words used in language, which in the language system—as a set of a certain extent—exist as singular “point-like” elements entering into it or as subsets of lesser extent, in the case of the word “language” this element of language—as part of the set of words—would coincide with the entire set of words. This means that, in seeking to define language “postmodernly,” we would have to look within language itself—as the greatest set of linguistic elements—for other elements that would make it possible to define circularly the meaning of the word “language.” We would immediately encounter an irresolvable paradox: such elements, being beyond the boundaries of the word “language,” would nevertheless still have to be within language, understood as a system incorporating all smaller elements. Obviously, this would be impossible—we could not find such elements within the language system itself, as the greatest set encompassing all other elements Language and destiny 335 NAGLIS KARDELIS encompassing them—within the set, because language would already have defined and included in advance everything that can be said in it. Thus, if we wanted to define the word “language” in the circular manner customary among postmodernists, we would have to find something that existed not as a certain element within the language system itself, but as an independent element existing beyond it, which we could use as a point of departure for defining language. However, according to the fundamental postmodernist position (at least its most radical version), there is and can be nothing beyond language—hence there are and can be no external elements beyond language that could become points of departure for us in circularly defining the meaning of the word “language.” Thus, according to the logic of the postmodernists’ own argumentation, in order to define the meaning of the word “language,” and therefore to understand what language is, there must inevitably exist not only language but also something beyond the boundaries of language itself, regardless of what it might be or what it might be called. Assuming that there is already nothing beyond the boundaries of language, we must acknowledge that language can no longer be understood and defined through its relation to what would lie beyond it; this would also mean that—according precisely to the postmodernist logic of defining any meanings—it could no longer be defined in any way, and therefore it would no longer be possible to understand what language is at all. In that case, language would simply be everything that exists; it would coincide with reality and would itself be reality—and, incidentally, because reality and language coincided, this reality would not be any less illusory, since its very measure of reality or unreality would simply not exist. As we have revealed through the argument just set out, the postmodernists’ conviction that there is nothing beyond the boundaries of language and that reality itself is merely an illusion statically arising in the medium of language, based precisely on the postmodernists’ own conception of how meanings are established in the language system, inevitably leads to the conclusion that, if there is nothing beyond the boundaries of language to provide even a single external point of departure on which we could rely in attempting to define the meaning of the word “language,” then language, coinciding with the greatest set of everything that exists, can no longer be defined and understood through language’s relation to what it is not; then we must acknowledge that language is reality, because it is everything that exists. Thus true reality, despite the postmodernists’ conviction that it is merely a linguistic illusion, would in that case have to be acknowledged as really existing, despite coinciding with language, because language and reality would simply be two different ways of describing the same mysterious and undefinable set of existing things. The paradox is that the postmodernist denial of reality’s reality, based on a distinctive conception of how meanings are established in language, reveals itself as analytically contradictory and self-refuting—by denying extra-linguistic reality, language itself, which can no longer be defined and clearly, determinately thought on the basis of its 336 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Language and reality relation to some exteriority existing beyond it, as a context for its comprehension and definition broader than language itself, must inevitably be thought of as identical with reality—in fact, as the only possible reality. The critique of both extreme views of the relationship between language and reality presented here should encourage us. We must draw the following conclusion: precisely the fact that we—although perhaps not entirely clearly—understand what language is, as well as the other important fact that language is necessary for us as a bridge connecting us, speakers, not only with one another but also with what lies beyond language, clearly indicates at least three things: first, that language and extra-linguistic reality are different from each other, because if they coincided, we would not need language at all—we would not even understand and could not understand what language is; second, that language and reality, although different from each other, are not completely separate, because if they were completely separate, language would once again be of no use to us as a bridge connecting us with what lies beyond it; third, language, although very rich, is always poorer than the reality extending beyond it, because if it were equally rich, we would wish to remain inside language and would not want to go beyond its boundaries—we would not need language this time either as a bridge by which we would wish to step into the promised land enticing us, surpassing language in being and richness... Received on 17 May 2021. NAGLIS KARDELIS Vilnius University Faculty of Philosophy Universiteto St. 9/1, LT–01513 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected] Language and destiny 337