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2 ideas
6093 | The names in a logically perfect language would be private, and could not be shared [Russell] |
Full Idea: A logically perfect language, if it could be constructed, would be, as regards its vocabulary, very largely private to one speaker; that is, all the names in it would be private to that speaker and could not enter into the language of another speaker. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §II) | |
A reaction: Wittgenstein obviously thought there was something not quite right about this… See Idea 4147, for example. I presume Russell's thought is that you would have no means of explaining the 'meanings' of the names in the language. |
18285 | All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap] |
Full Idea: I do not believe in translatability without loss of content, and therefore I think that the content of a world description is influenced to a certain degree by choice of a language form. But that does not mean that reality is created through language. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Letters to Schlick [1935], 1935.12.04), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 19 'Truth' | |
A reaction: It is a mistake to think Quine was the first to spot the interest of translation in philosophy of language. 'Does translation always lose content?' is a very nice question for focusing the problem. |