• creativesoul
    11.5k
    This seems to be where much of philosophy has been hung...
    1. Can we acquire knowledge of that which is not existentially dependent upon language? If so, How? (9 votes)
        Yes, here's how...
        78%
        Yes, but I'm not sure how...
          0%
        No.
        22%
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Sure, we invent new language - or provide new understandings for terms already in use.
  • creativesoul
    11.5k
    What makes it new?
  • khaled
    3.5k
    No, what possible way is there to communicate knowledge without language. Inventing new words counts as "dependent on language"
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    One learns how to talk. Necessarily, one comes to know one's first language without a language.

    Or at the very least, one's first few words.
  • Baden
    15.6k


    On a basic definition, of course:

    "Knowledge=facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject."

    Skills, for example, can clearly be independent or not fully dependent on language. Babies function before they can speak.
  • Moliere
    4k
    One way to acquire knowledge of orange juice is to taste the orange juice -- then you'd know how the orange juice tastes.
  • creativesoul
    11.5k
    One learns how to talk. Necessarily, one comes to know one's first language without a language.unenlightened

    Yes, all of what language acquisition requires in order to begin happening exists prior to and/or emerges simultaneously with language acquisition itself. We can acquire knowledge of these things...


    Skills, for example, can clearly be independent or not fully dependent on language. Babies function before they can speak.Baden

    Yes, some functions/functioning happens prior to language. We can acquire knowledge of such functioning...


    One way to acquire knowledge of orange juice is to taste the orange juice -- then you'd know how the orange juice tastes.Moliere

    How would we go about reasoning that knowing how the orange juice tastes is knowledge of something that exists prior to language? Orange juice certainly is not existentially dependent upon language. The act of tasting orange juice is not existentially dependent upon language either. So a language less creature can drink orange juice. Does drinking orange juice provide knowledge of how it tastes? Lots of creatures can drink orange juice.

    Seems we need a criterion.
  • Marchesk
    4.6k
    Can we acquire knowledge of that which is not existentially dependent upon language?creativesoul

    Animals can, we're animals, ergo obviously yes. It's just very useful for us to put that knowledge into language.

    3.1k
    This seems to be where much of philosophy has been hung...
    creativesoul

    One can see that as a symptom of philosophers being hung up over words, since disagreement so often hangs on the meaning of words.
  • Dfpolis
    1.3k
    It is simple. We are aware of the action of objects on us in experience. This awareness guarantees that the object can act to inform us as it is acting to inform us.
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


    Of course. Accidentally trip on a hole in the lawn that you didn't know about. Now you know not to step there, without having been told it in any language.

    Michael Ossipoff
  • prothero
    429
    Language is merely our effort to record or communicate our experience of the world to others.
    We can acquire direct experience (thus knowledge and memory) without language and many have.
    Language is in fact a poor substitute for direct personal experience.
  • Moliere
    4k
    How would we go about reasoning that knowing how the orange juice tastes is knowledge of something that exists prior to language? Orange juice certainly is not existentially dependent upon language. The act of tasting orange juice is not existentially dependent upon language either. So a language less creature can drink orange juice. Does drinking orange juice provide knowledge of how it tastes? Lots of creatures can drink orange juice.

    Seems we need a criterion.
    creativesoul

    I am inclined to call this sort of thing knowledge. We gain knowledge by doing, by seeing, by exploring. And I was focusing on experience because it seems odd to me to call experience propositional -- I'm sure that experience is molded by language, but I wouldn't say that this knowledge existentially depends on language.

    That is, the dog can know what orange juice tastes like too.

    I'm not so certain about needing a criteria, either. I'm inclined to say that we know things, and from said knowledge we then build theories of knowledge. The criteria arrived at are the theories of knowledge, rather than the measure of judgment for what counts as knowledge or not.
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