Language helps to communicate our ideas and our perceptions and hence it might be argued that it effects the judgement itself. Is language therefore a limitation? Does it change what we see and even how we understand? People come from different cultures and speak different languages; does that mean that their thinking is different as well? Do we think in words? This would mean that language indeed influences the way we see and understand; moreover that words influence the way we think limiting our ideas and understanding depending on the richness of the language. This is the Whorfian hypothesis which according to the says that the „linguistic patterns themselves determine what the individual perceives in this world and how he thinks about it”. An example is the Hopi language which does not include any tenses neither in nouns nor verbs. It has no concept of time as a continuing medium in which everything takes place at an equal pace. The Hopi do not understand our concept of time, which indicates that language seems to limit understanding and as everyone uses different language then everyone understands things differently according to his language. This is supported by the German philosopher Hans Reichenbach who said that “if you can’t say it, you don’t know it” . However does the language limit the understanding of time in case of the Hopi or does their understanding limit their language? When looking at the early history of mankind when language came into existence it is clear that the understanding of things did not evolve from language, but language evolved as a medium to communicate ideas. The scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi once said: “I know more than I can say”. He claims that human knowledge and understanding is not limited by words and therefore there is more to understanding than just language. But if thinking does not take place on a verbal base what is it then on? This links to emotion as thinking: we often do not think that an opponent is not a well- behaved person; instead we might feel a negative emotion related to him. Understanding and seeing does not necessarily take place on a verbal base, we can also think in emotions. To go back, the early humans felt something and tried to communicate it creating language according to the emotion. Language therefore might limit the way we communicate what we understand and see, but it does not necessarily limit ideas themselves. Furthermore this can be developed from a different angle when we compare two languages: my native language is German but I went to school in England. There is the German word “gemütlich”. Looking this word up in any dictionary gives the meaning “cosy”, but this does not really describe the original German meaning; the English language simply does not contain such a word. I, however, still understand the concept of “gemütlich”, even though I cannot express it in English; English people, on the other side, who might not know the word, have more difficulties understanding the concept, but eventually they do. Therefore language might help to understand things as communication helps the understanding of concepts and therefore the judgement, but it does not create the concept itself and therefore does not influence what and how we see things.
Other than language it appears that “empiricism claims that all our concepts ... are formed out of sense experiences”.The problem of perception is that there is a difference in what we perceive in our minds and what reality is since “we experience the object as an image in our mind”. Henri Bergson, a French philosopher, once said that “the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”. What he suggests is that what we perceive is influenced by our mind, which leads to the assumption that we see and, linked to that, understand things not as they are but as our mind is altering the image, and hence changing our perception. A personal example is that people seem more attractive to me when they have a nice perfume. They themselves do not change but my perception of the person changes as it is influenced by my sense perception of the perfume; the experience of something is shaped by our perception of it. On the other side it can be claimed that our senses are not subjective: eyes are eyes, and ears are ears. What everyone perceives is the same; it is rather our judgement of it which differs. Taking food as an example: it can be argued that what everyone tastes is the same, just whether we like it is different, but nevertheless we taste the food as it is and not as we are indicating that we see and understand things as they are.
Going back to the title the knowledge issue arises of how we know how things really are in case our perception of them is altered. How do we know whether a tree is really green, maybe it is red and humans just perceive it as being green? We might see and understand as we are, but as there is no other medium that tells us how things are in reality, reality becomes an imitation of our perception, at least for us. Using beauty as an example: we do not know what beauty is, we just perceive something as being beautiful. But instead of saying: “I perceive Adriana Lima as being beautiful”, we say: “Adriana Lima is beautiful.” We take our perception and make it our reality. Therefore it can be argued the title itself becomes irrelevant as we see and understand things as we are, but also to some extent as these things themselves are, altered by our perception.
To conclude it can be said that when looking at the ways of knowing, emotions have a strong influence on the human way to see and understand things and that they can change the personal perception. Language however may not influence the way we see and understand things, as it was created and influenced by ideas and not vice versa. It is simply used as a medium to communicate our understanding of things but does not limit our perception itself. Other than sense-perception: our senses reflect our personal taste and our personal taste influences our judgement of what we see. As taste is subjective and differs among individuals we see and understand things not as they are but as our senses are.
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Bibliography I: Books
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ALCHIN Nicholas, Theory of Knowledge, London, 2006.
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CARDINAL D., HAYWARD J., JONES G., Epistemology, The Theory of Knowledge, London, 2004.
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COLE Peter, THE THEORY of KNOWLEDGE, London, 2002.
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NAGEL Thomas, What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy, Oxford, 1987.
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PINKER Stephen, How the mind works, London, 1998.
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WANKEL Charles, DeFillippi Robert, University and Corporate Innovations in lifelong learning, Charlotte, 2008.
Bilbliography II: Internet
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- http://www.filepie.us/ (07.03.10)
- http://perspicuity.net (04.03.10)
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This is indicated by the fact that not everyone loves the same person, i.e. that different characters feel “love” for different people depending on their own character.
Nicholas Alchin, Theory of Knowledge, London, 2006, p.103.
Charles Wankel, Robert DeFillippi, University and Corporate Innovations in lifelong learning, Charlotte, 2008, p.44.
D. Cardinal, J, Hayward, G. Jones, Epistemology, The Theory of Knowledge, London, 2004, p.51.
Peter Cole, THE THEORY of KNOWLEDGE, London, 2002, p.56.