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Full Idea
It would be absurd to say the Hopi lack the concept of time because they lack tensed verbs, ..but how do we find out what a man's concepts are except in terms of his language?
Gist of Idea
A person's language doesn't prove their concepts, but how are concepts deduced apart from language?
Source
David E. Cooper (Philosophy and the Nature of Language [1973], §5.2)
Book Ref
Cooper,David E.: 'Philosophy and the Nature of Language' [Longman 1979], p.115
A Reaction
Presumably we should look at animals, where concepts must be inferred in order to explain behaviour. I don't see why introspection (scientifically wicked) should not also be employed to detect our own non-verbal concepts. How are new words invented?
| 3916 | Hopi consistently prefers verbs and events to nouns and things [Whorf] |
| 3914 | Language arranges sensory experience to form a world-order [Whorf] |
| 1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
| 4573 | If it is claimed that language correlates with culture, we must be able to identify the two independently [Cooper,DE] |
| 4575 | A person's language doesn't prove their concepts, but how are concepts deduced apart from language? [Cooper,DE] |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| 8088 | People still say the Hopi have no time concepts, despite Whorf's later denial [Devlin] |