Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Word: a structure separated by spaces from other words within a language. In general, words are formed by one or more characters which are attached to one another. Whole words can in turn be interpreted as signs. In human languages, the elements of the words are letters; in computer languages, other symbols are used within words. See also concepts, expressions, terms, language, characters, symbols, subsentential, meaning._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Plato on Words - Dictionary of Arguments
Gadamer I 410 Word/Plato/Gadamer: Two theories discussed in Plato's "Cratylos" attempt to determine the relationship between word and thing in different ways. A. Conventionalism: Conventionalist theory sees in the unambiguousness of language use, as achieved by agreement and practice, the only source of word meanings. B. Similarity theory: The theory opposing it represents a natural agreement between word and thing, which is precisely what is called correctness (orthotés). Conventionalism/Gadamer: The limit of conventionalism is: one cannot arbitrarily change what words mean if language is to be. The problem of "special languages" shows the conditions under which such rebaptisms take place. Name/Cratylos: Hermogenes in "Cratylos" himself gives an example: the rebaptizing of a servant(1). The inner dependence of the servant's life, the coincidence of his person with his function makes possible what otherwise fails because of the person's claim to his or her "being-for-themselves", to the preservation of his or her honor. Likewise, children and lovers have language through which they communicate in the world that is only their own, but even this not so much through arbitrary fixation as through the development of a habit of language. Always the commonality of a world - even if it is only a played one - is the precondition for "language". Similarity theory: [its] limit is also clear: one cannot criticize language with regard to the things meant in the sense that the words do not correctly represent the things. Language is not there at all like a mere tool that we use, that we build up to communicate and distinguish with it.(2) Gadamer: Both interpretations of the words start from their existence and being present and let things be for themselves as if they were known in advance. For this very reason they start too late from the outset. Plato/Gadamer: So one has to ask oneself whether Plato, who has the inner untenability of the two extreme positions, wants to put in question Gadamer I 411 a common prerequisite. Plato's thesis: With this discussion of contemporary theories of language, Plato wants to show that in language, in the claim to linguistic correctness (orthotes tön onomaton), no objective truth (aletheia tön onton) is attainable and that, without the words (aneu ton onomaton), one must recognize the existing purely from oneself (auta ex heauton)(3). Gadamer: This is a radical shift of the problem to a new level. The dialectic at which this is aimed obviously claims to place thinking on itself and to open it to its true objects, the "ideas", in such a way that the power of words (dynamis tön onomaton) and their demonic mechanization in the sophistic art of argumentation is overcome. Recognition/Truth: The exaggeration of the range of words (onomata) by dialectic is of course not meant to mean that there really is a wordless recognition, but only that it is not the word that opens the access to truth, but the other way round: that the "adequacy" of the word is only to be judged from the recognition of things. >Language/Plato. Gadamer I 412 The element of true speeches remains the word (onoma and rhema) - the same word in which truth is hidden beyond recognition and completely void.(4) Gadamer I 415 Truth/correctness/word/Cratylos/Plato/Gadamer: [It makes sense] to speak of an absolute perfection of the word, in so far as there is no sensual relationship at all between its sensual appearance and its meaning, and thus no distance. Cratylos would therefore have no reason to be bent back under the yoke of the image scheme. It is true that the image, without being a mere duplication of the original image, is similar to the original image, that is, as something that is different and refers to the other that it represents by its imperfect similarity. But this obviously does not apply to the relationship of the word to its meaning. In this respect, it is like the flash of a completely obscured truth when Socrates - in contrast to the paintings (zöa) - recognizes that the words are not only correct but also true (aléthe)(5). The "truth" of the word, of course, does not lie in its correctness, in its correct application to the matter. Rather, it lies in his perfect spirituality, i.e., the openness of the sense of the word in the sound. In this sense, all words are "true", i.e. their being is reflected in their meaning, while illustrations are only more or less similar and insofar - measured by the appearance of the thing - more or less correct. >Correctness/Plato, >Sophists/Plato. Gadamer I 416 Word/number/sign/Plato/Gadamer: one understands that not the word but the number is the actual paradigm of the noetic, the number, the naming of which is obviously pure convention and whose "precision" consists precisely in the fact that every number is defined by its position in the series, i.e. is a pure construct of intelligibility, an ens rationis, not in the attenuating sense of its being, but in the sense of its perfect rationality. This is the actual result to which the "Cratylos" refers, and this result has a highly momentous consequence which in truth influences all further thinking about language. >Logos/Plato. Gadamer I 418 The legitimate question of whether the word is nothing more than a "pure sign" or whether it does have something of the "image" in itself is fundamentally discredited by that. >Image/Plato. 1. Krat. 384 d. 2. Krat. 388 c. 3. Krat. 438 d-439 b. 4. But Cf. on >Mimesis as well as the significant change from "mimesis" to "methexis" which Aristotle attests in his Metaphysics A 6, 987 b 10-13 5. Krat. 430 d 5._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
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