Does Knowledge require Language?

[P A]

I know the color red, or the feel of the keyboard

But the question remains - does a dog? A rat?

To purport that you would capable of reproducing in consciousness those elements of experience commonly assigned the misleading moniker of 'raw feels' without the intermediary boon of language would suggest an untestable hypothesis. Needless to say, I doubt it.

As I pointed out in another thread, the idea of there being some illusory "what it is like to see red" is a reproachful one to me. All we have are our memories (inseparably coupled to associated words and images) of what the property of red is in our reckoning, and the expectation of what an object might look like if it bore the aforementioned color. This doesn't necessitate that we cook up a magical quale to reify the event and subsequently conflate it with the independant quality ascertained (the event: sight; the quality: color). The concept is inconsistent and solipsistic at best.

 

[panic in paradise]

im certain an animals behavior or mood can be influenced by color.
(how ever they see visually&mentally and interpret color hues)

some birds mating rituals for example, are an example, of expressing emotion and communicating with visual stimulus.
or maybe bees doing the "scuttlebutt" - this seems learned by observation and practice, but is a persistence of pattern in movement to communicate directions.

 

[vegan]

it doesn't

but of cours, like said, it helps

i suppose that many of you have had at times difficulties explaining what you meant... because our language is still too basic to express many concepts

on the other hand of the spectrum, a bird knows how to make a nest
ask him about it and you'll see if he needs langage to know

damn, i've seen a clip of a bonobo playing pacman!

If knowledge requires language, then how can you know what words mean?

i don't see why this question would have no meaning

it sounds pretty good to me

first time a homowhatever grabs a rock, holds it to another homowhatever and says "rock"

for the second to understand the relation between the object and the word, he doesn't have to use any language
the fact the "rock" pertains to a language doesn't change the fact that understanding and knowing the connection didn't involve any language

 

[Jerry Atrick]

Y'all should look up the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. I think it's mostly been discredited, but is something to think about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis

 

[panic in paradise]

^but does again credit -color.
or even better, art or painting, 'graphic imagery'.

can send a person wild...

 

[Jamshyd]

Y'all should look up the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. I think it's mostly been discredited, but is something to think about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis

While Whorf may have been gang raped by psycholinguists and anthropologists (Sapir was largely spared it seems, while the Eskimo snow-names thing became a poster-child for poorly-done anthropology...), the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis had been implicitly carried within Semiotics (itself presumed dead until recently by smugly-mainstream academics), and now even explicitly revived within that discipline by Umberto Eco (referenced in my earlier post, though better articulated in his book, Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, which he basically concludes by describing it as a re-envisioning of the S-W hypothesis.)

p.s. I owe it to Enki for introducing me to this brilliant line of thought, btw

 

[greenberryhaze]

first time a homowhatever grabs a rock, holds it to another homowhatever and says "rock"

for the second to understand the relation between the object and the word, he doesn't have to use any language
the fact the "rock" pertains to a language doesn't change the fact that understanding and knowing the connection didn't involve any language

Right. The point I was trying to make (I really should try to be more explicit) was that, if knowledge requires language, they would have to have co-evolved, much like the apple and the apple tree. If so, there would need to be a continuum (approximately) between knowledge and no knowledge and likewise between language and no-language, which may be contentious.

 

[DOB]

no it doesnt,dog can have knowledge that meat is good to eat even if he dont uderstand single bit from dog language.

 

[ebola?]

Is your computer in any sense knowledgeable?

 

[panic in paradise]

depuns on what i have it know, mind you.

 

[slimvictor]

There is a convention in mainstream academic debates on this question where "knowledge" is given two different delineations:
1. Gnosis - Supra-linguistic phenomena.

2. Episteme - Linguistic knowledge.

The former is within the domain of mysticism and, being non-linguistic itself, is really pointless to talk about, IMO.

This taxonomy seems to leave out the most important and basic type of knowledge: direct experience.
Take a sip of the tea. Do you know how it tastes? Do you need language to know how it tastes?
Hit yourself on the thumb with a hammer. Do you know how it feels? Do you need language to know this?

 

[slimvictor]

Y'all should look up the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. I think it's mostly been discredited, but is something to think about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis

Not discredited in my field.
The "strong version" (language is a prison for thought) has been discredited, to be sure, but weaker versions (e.g. language shapes thought) are broadly accepted, and more and more evidence has accumulated to support it in that form/those forms.

 

[panic in paradise]

" language is a prison for thought " seems compliments of: " language shapes thought ".

 

[Pythagoras]

This taxonomy seems to leave out the most important and basic type of knowledge: direct experience.
Take a sip of the tea. Do you know how it tastes? Do you need language to know how it tastes?
Hit yourself on the thumb with a hammer. Do you know how it feels? Do you need language to know this?

Well we have the Greek route - Episteme, later adopted to denote epistemological knowledge - the kind I think you seek. I would have added 'doxa' and 'techne' to Jamshyd's list.

I do not agree with Jam

1. Gnosis - Supra-linguistic phenomena.

2. Episteme - Linguistic knowledge.

The former is within the domain of mysticism and, being non-linguistic itself, is really pointless to talk about, IMO.

I disagree that Gnosis can't be talked about, indeed it came to represent a special trype of knowledge within Gnosticism, Hermetism, neo-Platonism and even early Christianity (see Eusebius).


In answer to the OPs question, can we have knowledge without language, I believe we can. If we allow emotive states as containing some kind of knowledge, then obviously there can be knowledge without language. Or can we deny the newly born 'knowledge' due to their absence of any language.

And from my own perspective, gnosis is knowledge that is absent of language.

 

[Jamshyd]

This taxonomy seems to leave out the most important and basic type of knowledge: direct experience.
Take a sip of the tea. Do you know how it tastes? Do you need language to know how it tastes?
Hit yourself on the thumb with a hammer. Do you know how it feels? Do you need language to know this?

Taste itself is a feeling or sensation, which is beyond the realm of knowledge (or lack thereof) as far as I'm concerned. The awareness of a feeling, and the descriptions thereof, are within the realm of learned or conventional knowledge - epistemological.

That said, it is my opinion that the sum-total of feelings, sensations, thoughts, etc., if one is aware of them all, add up to a sum that is more than the total (atomized) parts. The fleeting moments when there is awareness of THAT sum are ones I'd characterize as being gnostic in nature.

I would have added 'doxa' and 'techne' to Jamshyd's list.

I recall a professor mentioning these transiently during a discussion of Aristotle, but was quick to leave them and go back to his favourite subject (Dante), hehe. Please tell me more of your thoughts on these two categories.

I disagree that Gnosis can't be talked about, indeed it came to represent a special trype of knowledge within Gnosticism, Hermetism, neo-Platonism and even early Christianity (see Eusebius).

And from my own perspective, gnosis is knowledge that is absent of language.

To clarify (both to you and to peer.review): I did not mean to say that Gnosis as a category cannot be discussed, but rather that gnostic phenomena cannot be spoken of, due to being in their very nature ultra-linguistic - which you appear to agree with in your last statement.

 

[Pythagoras]

^^

Okay, see what you mean about Gnosis, though that said Gnostic writings and allegories were meant to bering one closer to Gnosis, though the final step towards Gnosis is if I recall non-linguistic.

Doxa, is the route for words like heterodoxy, othodoxy- and thus represents 'received wisdom, in some cases axiomatic, in others not, depends which philosopher is employing the term, as ever with the Greeks

 

[slimvictor]

Taste itself is a feeling or sensation, which is beyond the realm of knowledge (or lack thereof) as far as I'm concerned. The awareness of a feeling, and the descriptions thereof, are within the realm of learned or conventional knowledge - epistemological.

While this may be traditional within philosophy (I know very little about the field of philosophy per se), it seems silly to me.
To distinguish taste from knowledge?
On what basis?
Can you ever have a feeling or sensation that is not knowledge, and doesn't lead to knowledge?
Can I burn my finger in a fire, and have a sensation of pain and burning, and be aware of the sensation, but have no knowledge of the sensation? I have trouble accepting this.
Can I take a sip of tea, and get a sensation, but still have no knowledge of tea, or of the taste of tea? Hard to believe.

The way to build up knowledge is through experience, right?
Experience (nearly?) always involves sensation and awareness.

Any definition of "knowledge" that doesn't include sensations or awareness seems very limited to me.
Sounds to me like the categories that are assumed/hypothesized will lead to a very biased interpretation of the data.

 

[slimvictor]

" language is a prison for thought " seems compliments of: " language shapes thought ".

Related but distinct.
With the strong version, you simply cannot think in any way that your language does not permit.
With the weak version, your thoughts are influenced by your language, but that influence is not like a prison.

 

[panic in paradise]

haha, now i see -
right.
:-]


this only seems to add to the point, seems we are to be an example here, of:
... when knowledge of experience is confronted by that of academia.
heheh -

-hopefully,, my interest is as evident as my ignorance - and more questions of greater answers will continue to come my way-


good stuff

 

[sssssssssss]

knowledge is using ur own creativity to make ur own assumptions about your environment based on ur experiences.

language is trying to acquire knowledge through the use of other peoples experience to form your own and usually isnt as stong of a memory as experiencing it yourself