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122-432: In classical Indian philosophy of language , the grammarian Katyayana stated that shabda ("speech") is eternal ( nitya ), as is artha "meaning", and that they share a mutual co-relation. According to Patanjali , the permanent aspect of shabda is sphoṭa ("meaning"), while dhvani ("sound, acoustics") is ephemeral to shabda . Om, or Aum , a sacred syllable of Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism and Sikhism ,

244-418: A semantic fact (i.e., the proposition that is represented by "The horse is red"). In other words, a propositional function is like an algorithm. The meaning of "red" in this case is whatever takes the entity "the horse" and turns it into the statement, "The horse is red." Linguists have developed at least two general methods of understanding the relationship between the parts of a linguistic string and how it

366-597: A convention exactly is, and how it is studied, and second regards the extent that conventions even matter in the study of language. David Kellogg Lewis proposed a worthy reply to the first question by expounding the view that a convention is a "rationally self-perpetuating regularity in behavior". However, this view seems to compete to some extent with the Gricean view of speaker's meaning, requiring either one (or both) to be weakened if both are to be taken as true. Some have questioned whether or not conventions are relevant to

488-484: A discipline that some literary theorists claim overlaps with the philosophy of language. It emphasizes the methods that readers and critics use in understanding a text. This field, an outgrowth of the study of how to properly interpret messages, is closely tied to the ancient discipline of hermeneutics . God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator , and principal object of faith . In polytheistic belief systems,

610-427: A god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped". Belief in the existence of at least one god is called theism . Conceptions of God vary considerably. Many notable theologians and philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God . Atheism rejects the belief in any deity. Agnosticism

732-618: A god is known. Consequently, the capitalized form of god is not used for multiple gods or when used to refer to the generic idea of a deity . The English word God and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all. El means 'god' in Hebrew, but in Judaism and in Christianity , God

854-512: A god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference". Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old. Some theologians, such as Alister McGrath , argue that

976-648: A higher power or God after the experience. About a quarter of those afflicted by temporal lobe seizures experience what is described as a religious experience and may become preoccupied by thoughts of God even if they were not previously. Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran hypothesizes that seizures in the temporal lobe, which is closely connected to the emotional center of the brain, the limbic system , may lead to those afflicted to view even banal objects with heightened meaning. Psychologists studying feelings of awe found that participants feeling awe after watching scenes of natural wonders become more likely to believe in

1098-421: A means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups. Johns Hopkins researchers studying

1220-516: A non-theistic religion, Buddhism leaves the existence of a supreme deity ambiguous. There are significant numbers of Buddhists who believe in God, and there are equally large numbers who deny God's existence or are unsure. Chinese religions such as Confucianism and Taoism are silent on the existence of creator gods. However, keeping with the tradition of ancestor veneration in China , adherents worship

1342-419: A range of correctness. He also argued that primitive names had a natural correctness, because each phoneme represented basic ideas or sentiments. For example, for Plato the letter l and its sound represented the idea of softness. However, by the end of Cratylus , he had admitted that some social conventions were also involved, and that there were faults in the idea that phonemes had individual meanings. Plato

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1464-407: A real commonality of form, he is more often considered a proponent of moderate realism . The Stoics made important contributions to the analysis of grammar, distinguishing five parts of speech: nouns, verbs, appellatives (names or epithets ), conjunctions and articles . They also developed a sophisticated doctrine of the lektón associated with each sign of a language, but distinct from both

1586-522: A referent. Such a "mediated reference" view has certain theoretical advantages over Mill's view. For example, co-referential names, such as Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain , cause problems for a directly referential view because it is possible for someone to hear "Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens" and be surprised – thus, their cognitive content seems different. Despite the differences between the views of Frege and Russell, they are generally lumped together as descriptivists about proper names. Such descriptivism

1708-430: A series of images of imaginary aliens. Whether each alien was friendly or hostile was determined by certain subtle features but participants were not told what these were. They had to guess whether each alien was friendly or hostile, and after each response they were told if they were correct or not, helping them learn the subtle cues that distinguished friend from foe. A quarter of the participants were told in advance that

1830-400: A supernatural being and to see events as the result of design, even when given randomly generated numbers. Theistic religious traditions often require worship of God and sometimes hold that the purpose of existence is to worship God. To address the issue of an all-powerful being demanding to be worshipped, it is held that God does not need or benefit from worship but that worship is for

1952-516: A way predicted by grammatical gender . For example, when asked to describe a "key"—a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish—the German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard", "heavy", "jagged", "metal", "serrated" and "useful" whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden", "intricate", "little", "lovely", "shiny" and "tiny". To describe a "bridge", which

2074-451: A whole was understood to be a matter of philosophy of language. In continental philosophy , the foundational work in the field was Ferdinand de Saussure 's Cours de linguistique générale , published posthumously in 1916. The topic that has received the most attention in the philosophy of language has been the nature of meaning, to explain what "meaning" is, and what we mean when we talk about meaning. Within this area, issues include:

2196-410: Is omnipotent , omniscient, and benevolent. This belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Dystheism , which is related to theodicy , is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil . Omnipotence (all-powerful) is an attribute often ascribed to God. The omnipotence paradox

2318-553: Is "beyond" being and is both the source of the Universe and the teleological purpose of all things. Aristotle theorized a first uncaused cause for all motion in the universe and viewed it as perfectly beautiful, immaterial, unchanging and indivisible. Aseity is the property of not depending on any cause other than itself for its existence. Avicenna held that there must be a necessarily existent guaranteed to exist by its essence—it cannot "not" exist—and that humans identify this as God. Secondary causation refers to God creating

2440-615: Is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means 'Wonderful Teacher' in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means 'wonderful', and guru ( Sanskrit : guru ) is a term denoting 'teacher'. Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all description. The most common usage of the word Waheguru is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other— Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh , "Wonderful Lord's Khalsa , Victory

2562-480: Is a tradition called speculative grammar which existed from the 11th to the 13th century. Leading scholars included Martin of Dacia and Thomas of Erfurt (see Modistae ). Linguists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods such as Johannes Goropius Becanus , Athanasius Kircher and John Wilkins were infatuated with the idea of a philosophical language reversing the confusion of tongues , influenced by

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2684-488: Is also given a personal name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity, Yahweh . In many English translations of the Bible , when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Jews and Christians in the interjection " Hallelujah ", meaning 'praise Jah', which

2806-475: Is an extraordinary intervention by God, such as miracles . Deism holds that God exists but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it, such as answering prayers or producing miracles. Deists sometimes attribute this to God having no interest in or not being aware of humanity. Pandeists would hold that God does not intervene because God is the Universe. Of those theists who hold that God has an interest in humanity, most hold that God

2928-476: Is beginningless. Some interpretations and traditions of Buddhism can be conceived as being non-theistic . Buddhism has generally rejected the specific monotheistic view of a creator deity . The Buddha criticizes the theory of creationism in the early Buddhist texts . Also, major Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as Nagarjuna , Vasubandhu , Dharmakirti , and Buddhaghosa , consistently critiqued Creator God views put forth by Hindu thinkers. However, as

3050-520: Is considered to be the first resonating vibrational sound within an individual being. It also denotes the non-dualistic universe as a whole. In Buddhism, Om corresponds to the crown chakra and white light. Bhartrihari , on the other hand, held a shabda- advaita position, identifying shabda as indivisible, and unifying the notions of cognition and linguistic performance, which is ultimately identical to Brahman . Bhartrhari recognised two entities, both of which may be referred to as shabda . One entity

3172-424: Is contradictory as that would entail opposing himself. Omniscience (all-knowing) is an attribute often ascribed to God. This implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, either their free will might be illusory or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient. Open Theism limits God's omniscience by contending that, due to

3294-546: Is deeply counterintuitive. Hence, names are rigid designators , according to Kripke. That is, they refer to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists. In the same work, Kripke articulated several other arguments against " Frege–Russell " descriptivism (see also Kripke's causal theory of reference ). The whole philosophical enterprise of studying reference has been critiqued by linguist Noam Chomsky in various works. It has long been known that there are different parts of speech . One part of

3416-606: Is different from them, and perceptibles are apprehended each by the one kind of organ, speech by another. Hence, since the objects of sight cannot be presented to any other organ but sight, and the different sense-organs cannot give their information to one another, similarly speech cannot give any information about perceptibles. Therefore, if anything exists and is comprehended, it is incommunicable. There are studies that prove that languages shape how people understand causality. Some of them were performed by Lera Boroditsky . For example, English speakers tend to say things like "John broke

3538-504: Is either spoken or written, but through Sabda (words). The reliability of the source is important, and legitimate knowledge can only come from the Sabda of reliable sources. The disagreement between the schools of Hinduism has been on how to establish reliability. Some schools, such as Carvaka , state that this is never possible, and therefore Sabda is not a proper pramana. Other schools debate means to establish reliability. In Sikhism ,

3660-529: Is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful", "elegant", "fragile", "peaceful", "pretty" and "slender", and the Spanish speakers said "big", "dangerous", "long", "strong", "sturdy" and "towering". This was the case even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. In a series of studies conducted by Gary Lupyan, people were asked to look at

3782-557: Is gender-specific. God is referred to by different names depending on the language and cultural tradition, sometimes with different titles of God used in reference to God's various attributes. The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus . The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form *ǵhu-tó-m

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3904-414: Is most often framed with the example "Could God create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?" as God could either be unable to create that stone or lift that stone and so could not be omnipotent. This is often countered with variations of the argument that omnipotence, like any other attribute ascribed to God, only applies as far as it is noble enough to befit God and thus God cannot lie, or do what

4026-762: Is no deity except God." In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in Father , Son ( Jesus ), and Holy Spirit . In past centuries, this fundamental mystery of the Christian faith was also summarized by the Latin formula Sancta Trinitas, Unus Deus (Holy Trinity, Unique God), reported in the Litanias Lauretanas . God in Hinduism is viewed differently by diverse strands of

4148-534: Is not necessarily true that if Aristotle existed then Aristotle was any one, or all, of these descriptions. Aristotle may well have existed without doing any single one of the things for which he is known to posterity. He may have existed and not have become known to posterity at all or he may have died in infancy. Suppose that Aristotle is associated by Mary with the description "the last great philosopher of antiquity" and (the actual) Aristotle died in infancy. Then Mary's description would seem to refer to Plato. But this

4270-499: Is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance. Sacrifice for the sake of God is another act of devotion that includes fasting and almsgiving . Remembrance of God in daily life include mentioning interjections thanking God when feeling gratitude or phrases of adoration , such as repeating chants while performing other activities. Transtheistic religious traditions may believe in

4392-532: Is often considered a monistic concept of God. God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God , with early references to his name as Krishna - Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari . Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa is the term used in Balinese Hinduism . In Chinese religion , Shangdi is conceived as the progenitor of

4514-477: Is often considered a proponent of extreme realism . Aristotle interested himself with issues of logic , categories, and the creation of meaning. He separated all things into categories of species and genus . He thought that the meaning of a predicate was established through an abstraction of the similarities between various individual things. This theory later came to be called nominalism . However, since Aristotle took these similarities to be constituted by

4636-485: Is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology , which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems. Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries. Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of

4758-501: Is only one deity, referred to as "God" (with uppercase g ). Comparing or equating other entities to God is viewed as idolatry in monotheism, and is often strongly condemned. Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic traditions in the world. Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid , meaning 'oneness' or "uniqueness'. The first pillar of Islam is an oath that forms the basis of the religion and which non-Muslims wishing to convert must recite, declaring that, "I testify that there

4880-478: Is partly something originally given, partly that which develops freely. And just as the individual can never reach the point at which he becomes absolutely independent ... so too with language. The phrase " linguistic turn " was used to describe the noteworthy emphasis that contemporary philosophers put upon language. Language began to play a central role in Western philosophy in the early 20th century. One of

5002-401: Is possible to use the concept of functions to describe more than just how lexical meanings work: they can also be used to describe the meaning of a sentence. In the sentence "The horse is red", "the horse" can be considered to be the product of a propositional function . A propositional function is an operation of language that takes an entity (in this case, the horse) as an input and outputs

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5124-476: Is put together: syntactic and semantic trees. Syntactic trees draw upon the words of a sentence with the grammar of the sentence in mind; semantic trees focus upon the role of the meaning of the words and how those meanings combine to provide insight onto the genesis of semantic facts. Some of the major issues at the intersection of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind are also dealt with in modern psycholinguistics . Some important questions regard

5246-415: Is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science and without invoking divine beings. A deity, or "god" (with lowercase g ), refers to a supernatural being. Monotheism is the belief that there

5368-472: Is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism . A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. The view that all theists actually worship

5490-438: Is the belief that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable . Some theists view knowledge concerning God as derived from faith. God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence. God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator, sustainer , and ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as incorporeal and independent of the material creation, while pantheism holds that God

5612-530: Is the underlying cause of the articulated sounds, while the other entity is the functionality that is used to express meaning. Bhartrhari thus rejected the difference posited between the ontological and the linguistic by logicians . His concept of shabda-brahman which identified linguistic performance and creation itself ran parallel to the Greek concept of logos . Language philosophy in Medieval India

5734-440: Is the universe and the universe is God and denies that God transcends the Universe. For pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza , the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature. Pantheism is sometimes objected to as not providing any meaningful explanation of God with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stating, "Pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism." Pandeism holds that God

5856-444: Is the universe itself. God is sometimes seen as omnibenevolent , while deism holds that God is not involved with humanity apart from creation. Some traditions attach spiritual significance to maintaining some form of relationship with God, often involving acts such as worship and prayer , and see God as the source of all moral obligation . God is sometimes described without reference to gender , while others use terminology that

5978-459: Is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God , the divine or the supernatural exist—are unknown and perhaps unknowable. Theism generally holds that God exists objectively and independently of human thought and is sometimes used to refer to any belief in God or gods. Some view the existence of God as an empirical question. Richard Dawkins states that "a universe with

6100-692: Is to the Wonderful Lord." Baha , the "greatest" name for God in the Baháʼí Faith , is Arabic for "All-Glorious". Other names for God include Aten in ancient Egyptian Atenism where Aten was proclaimed to be the one "true" supreme being and creator of the universe, Chukwu in Igbo , and Hayyi Rabbi in Mandaeism . The existence of God is a subject of debate in theology , philosophy of religion and popular culture . In philosophical terms,

6222-497: Is to what extent language influences thought and vice versa. There have been a number of different perspectives on this issue, each offering a number of insights and suggestions. Linguists Sapir and Whorf suggested that language limited the extent to which members of a "linguistic community" can think about certain subjects (a hypothesis paralleled in George Orwell 's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four ). In other words, language

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6344-439: Is used in metaphor , metonyms and other figures of speech). A proper suppositio , in turn, can be either formal or material accordingly when it refers to its usual non-linguistic referent (as in "Charles is a man"), or to itself as a linguistic entity (as in " Charles has seven letters"). Such a classification scheme is the precursor of modern distinctions between use and mention , and between language and metalanguage. There

6466-458: Is used socially. Specific interests include the topics of language learning , language creation, and speech acts . Secondly, the question of how language relates to the minds of both the speaker and the interpreter is investigated. Of specific interest is the grounds for successful translation of words and concepts into their equivalents in another language. An important problem which touches both philosophy of language and philosophy of mind

6588-497: Is used to give God glory. In Judaism , some of the Hebrew titles of God are considered holy names . Allāh ( Arabic : الله ) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews meaning 'the God', while ʾilāh ( إِلَٰه , plural `āliha آلِهَة ) is the term used for a deity or a god in general. Muslims also use a multitude of other titles for God. In Hinduism , Brahman

6710-428: Is wise, but can say that God is not ignorant (i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge). Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that one has to understand a "personal god" as an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe." Pantheism holds that God

6832-565: The shruti , Vedas . Hiriyanna explains Sabda-pramana as a concept which means reliable expert testimony. The schools of Hinduism which consider it epistemically valid suggest that a human being needs to know numerous facts, and with the limited time and energy available, he can learn only a fraction of those facts and truths directly. He must rely on others, his parent, family, friends, teachers, ancestors and kindred members of society to rapidly acquire and share knowledge and thereby enrich each other's lives. This means of gaining proper knowledge

6954-584: The Audible Life Stream , Inner Sound , Sound Current or Word in English, the Shabd is the esoteric essence of God which is available to all human beings, according to the Shabd path teachings of Sant Mat , Surat Shabd Yoga , Eckankar , Vardankar (a split-off from Eckankar), and Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness . Philosophy of language Philosophy of language investigates

7076-531: The Shabad is Gurmukhi . Shabad is the term also used to refer to hymns within other Sikh scriptures, like Deh Siva Var Mohe . Shabad Vani is devotional singing of hymns from Sikh scriptures. The second use of the term Shabad in Sikhism is for the holy name of God, Waheguru . Esoterically, Shabd is the “Sound Current vibrating in all creation. It can be heard by the inner ears.” Variously referred to as

7198-709: The Vienna Circle , logical positivists , and Willard Van Orman Quine . In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with Socrates , Plato , Aristotle , and the Stoics . Linguistic speculation predated systematic descriptions of grammar which emerged c.  the 5th century BC in India and c.  the 3rd century BC in Greece. In the dialogue Cratylus , Plato considered

7320-401: The anthropic principle , and so would not learn of, for example, life on other planets or of universes that did not occur because of different laws of physics . Non-theists have argued that complex processes that have natural explanations yet to be discovered are referred to the supernatural, called god of the gaps . Other theists, such as John Henry Newman who believed theistic evolution

7442-524: The principle of compositionality to explain the relationship between meaningful parts and whole sentences. The principle of compositionality asserts that a sentence can be understood on the basis of the meaning of the parts of the sentence (i.e., words, morphemes) along with an understanding of its structure (i.e., syntax, logic). Further, syntactic propositions are arranged into discourse or narrative structures, which also encode meanings through pragmatics like temporal relations and pronominals. It

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7564-599: The agents of accidental events as well as did English speakers. Russian speakers, who make an extra distinction between light and dark blue in their language, are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue. The Piraha , a tribe in Brazil , whose language has only terms like few and many instead of numerals, are not able to keep track of exact quantities. In one study German and Spanish speakers were asked to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in

7686-437: The amount of innate language, if language acquisition is a special faculty in the mind, and what the connection is between thought and language. There are three general perspectives on the issue of language learning. The first is the behaviorist perspective, which dictates that not only is the solid bulk of language learned, but it is learned via conditioning. The second is the hypothesis testing perspective , which understands

7808-432: The argument from morality is the argument from conscience which argues for the existence of God given the existence of a conscience that informs of right and wrong, even against prevailing moral codes. Philosopher John Locke instead argued that conscience is a social construct and thus could lead to contradicting morals. Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. Agnosticism

7930-449: The atheist J. L. Mackie agreed that the argument is valid, they disagreed with its premises. David Hume argued that there is no basis to believe in objective moral truths while biologist E. O. Wilson theorized that the feelings of morality are a by-product of natural selection in humans and would not exist independent of the mind. Philosopher Michael Lou Martin argued that a subjective account for morality can be acceptable. Similar to

8052-568: The benefit of the worshipper. Mahatma Gandhi expressed the view that God does not need his supplication and that, "Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is a daily admission of one's weakness." Invoking God in prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Depending on the tradition, God can be viewed as a personal God who is only to be invoked directly while other traditions allow praying to intermediaries, such as saints , to intercede on their behalf. Prayer often also includes supplication such as asking forgiveness . God

8174-435: The brain when it comes to language. Connectionist models emphasize the idea that a person's lexicon and their thoughts operate in a kind of distributed, associative network. Nativist models assert that there are specialized devices in the brain that are dedicated to language acquisition. Computation models emphasize the notion of a representational language of thought and the logic-like, computational processing that

8296-400: The central figures involved in this development was the German philosopher Gottlob Frege , whose work on philosophical logic and the philosophy of language in the late 19th century influenced the work of 20th-century analytic philosophers Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein . The philosophy of language became so pervasive that for a time, in analytic philosophy circles, philosophy as

8418-401: The child's learning of syntactic rules and meanings to involve the postulation and testing of hypotheses, through the use of the general faculty of intelligence. The final candidate for explanation is the innatist perspective, which states that at least some of the syntactic settings are innate and hardwired, based on certain modules of the mind. There are varying notions of the structure of

8540-433: The common sentence is the lexical word , which is composed of nouns , verbs, and adjectives. A major question in the field – perhaps the single most important question for formalist and structuralist thinkers – is how the meaning of a sentence emerges from its parts. Many aspects of the problem of the composition of sentences are addressed in the field of linguistics of syntax . Philosophical semantics tends to focus on

8662-460: The doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism , mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement. Fideism is the position that in certain topics, notably theology such as in reformed epistemology , faith is superior than reason in arriving at truths. Some theists argue that there is value to

8784-628: The early 19th century, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard insisted that language ought to play a larger role in Western philosophy . He argued that philosophy has not sufficiently focused on the role language plays in cognition and that future philosophy ought to proceed with a conscious focus on language: If the claim of philosophers to be unbiased were all it pretends to be, it would also have to take account of language and its whole significance in relation to speculative philosophy ... Language

8906-400: The effects of gendered language. It can also be used to study linguistic transparency (or speaking in an accessible manner), as well as performative utterances and the various tasks that language can perform (called "speech acts"). It also has applications to the study and interpretation of law, and helps give insight to the logical concept of the domain of discourse . Literary theory is

9028-470: The effects of the "spirit molecule" DMT , which is both an endogenous molecule in the human brain and the active molecule in the psychedelic ayahuasca , found that a large majority of respondents said DMT brought them into contact with a "conscious, intelligent, benevolent, and sacred entity", and describe interactions that oozed joy, trust, love, and kindness. More than half of those who had previously self-identified as atheists described some type of belief in

9150-434: The existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method . Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argued that science and religion are not in conflict and proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called " non-overlapping magisteria " (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural , such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non - empirical and are

9272-415: The existence of deities but deny any spiritual significance to them. The term has been used to describe certain strands of Buddhism, Jainism and Stoicism . Among religions that do attach spirituality to the relationship with God disagree as how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view

9394-589: The existence of other deities. Transcendence is the aspect of God's nature that is completely independent of the material universe and its physical laws. Many supposed characteristics of God are described in human terms. Anselm thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity of judging "being" against something that might not exist, led many medieval philosophers approach to knowledge of God through negative attributes, called Negative theology . For example, one should not say that God

9516-399: The existence of ugliness in the universe. This has also been countered by arguing that beauty has no objective reality and so the universe could be seen as ugly or that humans have made what is more beautiful than nature. The argument from morality argues for the existence of God given the assumption of the objective existence of morals . While prominent non-theistic philosophers such as

9638-613: The first serious proposals for codifying a mental language. The scholastics of the high medieval period, such as Ockham and John Duns Scotus , considered logic to be a scientia sermocinalis (science of language). The result of their studies was the elaboration of linguistic-philosophical notions whose complexity and subtlety has only recently come to be appreciated. Many of the most interesting problems of modern philosophy of language were anticipated by medieval thinkers. The phenomena of vagueness and ambiguity were analyzed intensely, and this led to an increasing interest in problems related to

9760-409: The friendly aliens were called "leebish" and the hostile ones "grecious", while another quarter were told the opposite. For the rest, the aliens remained nameless. It was found that participants who were given names for the aliens learned to categorize the aliens far more quickly, reaching 80 per cent accuracy in less than half the time taken by those not told the names. By the end of the test, those told

9882-497: The gradual discovery of Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs ( Hieroglyphica ). This thought parallels the idea that there might be a universal language of music. European scholarship began to absorb the Indian linguistic tradition only from the mid-18th century, pioneered by Jean François Pons and Henry Thomas Colebrooke (the editio princeps of Varadarāja , a 17th-century Sanskrit grammarian, dating to 1849). In

10004-645: The ground of all being, immanent in and transcendent over the whole world of reality, with immanence and transcendence being the contrapletes of personality. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation , and the "greatest conceivable existent". These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides , Augustine of Hippo , and Al-Ghazali , respectively. Jainism has generally rejected creationism , holding that soul substances ( Jīva ) are uncreated and that time

10126-430: The laws of the Universe which then can change themselves within the framework of those laws . In addition to the initial creation, occasionalism refers to the idea that the Universe would not by default continue to exist from one instant to the next and so would need to rely on God as a sustainer . While divine providence refers to any intervention by God, it is usually used to refer to "special providence", where there

10248-462: The meanings of mental contents and states directly. Another tradition of philosophers has attempted to show that language and thought are coextensive – that there is no way of explaining one without the other. Donald Davidson, in his essay "Thought and Talk", argued that the notion of belief could only arise as a product of public linguistic interaction. Daniel Dennett holds a similar interpretationist view of propositional attitudes . To an extent,

10370-424: The mind performs over them. Emergentist models focus on the notion that natural faculties are a complex system that emerge from simpler biological parts. Reductionist models attempt to explain higher-level mental processes in terms of the basic low-level neurophysiological activity. Firstly, this field of study seeks to better understand what speakers and listeners do with language in communication , and how it

10492-619: The mind. The main argument in favor of such a view is that the structure of thoughts and the structure of language seem to share a compositional, systematic character. Another argument is that it is difficult to explain how signs and symbols on paper can represent anything meaningful unless some sort of meaning is infused into them by the contents of the mind. One of the main arguments against is that such levels of language can lead to an infinite regress. In any case, many philosophers of mind and language, such as Ruth Millikan , Fred Dretske and Fodor, have recently turned their attention to explaining

10614-401: The names could correctly categorize 88 per cent of aliens, compared to just 80 per cent for the rest. It was concluded that naming objects helps us categorize and memorize them. In another series of experiments, a group of people was asked to view furniture from an IKEA catalog. Half the time they were asked to label the object – whether it was a chair or lamp, for example – while the rest of

10736-455: The nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning , intentionality , reference , the constitution of sentences, concepts, learning , and thought . Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's " linguistic turn ". These writers were followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein ( Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ),

10858-479: The nature of synonymy , the origins of meaning itself, our apprehension of meaning, and the nature of composition (the question of how meaningful units of language are composed of smaller meaningful parts, and how the meaning of the whole is derived from the meaning of its parts). There have been several distinctive explanations of what a linguistic "meaning" is. Each has been associated with its own body of literature. Investigations into how language interacts with

10980-460: The nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future and process theology holds that God does not have immutability , so is affected by his creation. Theologians of theistic personalism (the view held by René Descartes , Isaac Newton , Alvin Plantinga , Richard Swinburne , William Lane Craig , and most modern evangelicals ) argue that God is most generally

11102-430: The needs of humanity at different points in history and for different cultures, and as part of a scheme of progressive revelation and education of humanity. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism , i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism , where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism :

11224-655: The only directly referential expressions are what he called "logically proper names". Logically proper names are such terms as I , now , here and other indexicals . He viewed proper names of the sort described above as "abbreviated definite descriptions " (see Theory of descriptions ). Hence Joseph R. Biden may be an abbreviation for "the current President of the United States and husband of Jill Biden". Definite descriptions are denoting phrases (see " On Denoting ") which are analyzed by Russell into existentially quantified logical constructions. Such phrases denote in

11346-433: The origin of the universe to argue for the existence of God. The teleological argument , also called "argument from design", uses the complexity within the universe as a proof of the existence of God. It is countered that the fine tuning required for a stable universe with life on earth is illusory, as humans are only able to observe the small part of this universe that succeeded in making such observation possible, called

11468-400: The particular words that people use to achieve the proper emotional and rational effect in the listener, be it to persuade, provoke, endear, or teach. Some relevant applications of the field include the examination of propaganda and didacticism , the examination of the purposes of swearing and pejoratives (especially how it influences the behaviors of others, and defines relationships), or

11590-407: The philosopher of language. For instance, one of the major fields of sociology, symbolic interactionism , is based on the insight that human social organization is based almost entirely on the use of meanings. In consequence, any explanation of a social structure (like an institution ) would need to account for the shared meanings which create and sustain the structure. Rhetoric is the study of

11712-502: The proper domain of theology . The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world. Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their 2010 book, The Grand Design , that it

11834-497: The question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being or existence ) and the theory of value (since some definitions of God include "perfection"). Ontological arguments refer to any argument for the existence of God that is based on a priori reasoning. Notable ontological arguments were formulated by Anselm and René Descartes . Cosmological arguments use concepts around

11956-423: The question of whether the names of things were determined by convention or by nature. He criticized conventionalism because it led to the bizarre consequence that anything can be conventionally denominated by any name. Hence, it cannot account for the correct or incorrect application of a name. He claimed that there was a natural correctness to names. To do this, he pointed out that compound words and phrases have

12078-406: The religion, with most Hindus having faith in a supreme reality ( Brahman ) who can be manifested in numerous chosen deities. Thus, the religion is sometimes characterized as Polymorphic Monotheism . Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god at a time while accepting the validity of worshiping other deities. Monolatry is the belief in a single deity worthy of worship while accepting

12200-476: The risk in having faith and that if the arguments for God's existence were as rational as the laws of physics then there would be no risk. Such theists often argue that the heart is attracted to beauty, truth and goodness and so would be best for dictating about God, as illustrated through Blaise Pascal who said, "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." A hadith attributes a quote to God as "I am what my slave thinks of me." Inherent intuition about God

12322-479: The same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in the Baháʼí Faith, Hinduism, and Sikhism. The Baháʼí Faith preaches that divine manifestations include great prophets and teachers of many of the major religious traditions such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Bahá'ú'lláh and also preaches the unity of all religions and focuses on these multiple epiphanies as necessary for meeting

12444-404: The sense that there is an object that satisfies the description. However, such objects are not to be considered meaningful on their own, but have meaning only in the proposition expressed by the sentences of which they are a part. Hence, they are not directly referential in the same way as logically proper names, for Russell. On Frege's account, any referring expression has a sense as well as

12566-504: The sign itself and the thing to which it refers. This lektón was the meaning or sense of every term. The complete lektón of a sentence is what we would now call its proposition . Only propositions were considered truth-bearing —meaning they could be considered true or false—while sentences were simply their vehicles of expression. Different lektá could also express things besides propositions, such as commands, questions and exclamations. Medieval philosophers were greatly interested in

12688-519: The social conditions that give rise to, or are associated with, meanings and languages. Etymology (the study of the origins of words) and stylistics (philosophical argumentation over what makes "good grammar", relative to a particular language) are two other examples of fields that are taken to be metasemantic. Many separate (but related) fields have investigated the topic of linguistic convention within their own research paradigms. The presumptions that prop up each theoretical view are of interest to

12810-513: The spirits of people such as Confucius and Laozi in a similar manner to God. Some atheists have argued that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined and embellished over generations. Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons

12932-584: The study of meaning at all. Noam Chomsky proposed that the study of language could be done in terms of the I-Language, or internal language of persons. If this is so, then it undermines the pursuit of explanations in terms of conventions, and relegates such explanations to the domain of metasemantics . Metasemantics is a term used by philosopher of language Robert Stainton to describe all those fields that attempt to explain how semantic facts arise. One fruitful source of research involves investigation into

13054-428: The subtleties of language and its usage. For many scholastics , this interest was provoked by the necessity of translating Greek texts into Latin . There were several noteworthy philosophers of language in the medieval period. According to Peter J. King, (although this has been disputed), Peter Abelard anticipated the modern theories of reference . Also, William of Ockham 's Summa Logicae brought forward one of

13176-737: The term Shabad (Gurmukhi: ਸਬਦ) has two primary meanings. The first context of the term is to refer to a hymn or paragraph or sections of the Holy Text that appears in Guru Granth Sahib , the main holy scripture of the Sikhs. The Guru Granth Sahib is organised by chapters of ragas , with each chapter containing many shabads of that raga . The first Shabad in Guru Granth Sahib is the Mool Mantar . The script used for

13298-493: The theoretical underpinnings to cognitive semantics (including the notion of semantic framing ) suggest the influence of language upon thought. However, the same tradition views meaning and grammar as a function of conceptualization, making it difficult to assess in any straightforward way. Some thinkers, like the ancient sophist Gorgias , have questioned whether or not language was capable of capturing thought at all. ...speech can never exactly represent perceptibles, since it

13420-571: The thought that its embedding sentence expresses. Senses determine reference and are also the modes of presentation of the objects to which expressions refer. Referents are the objects in the world that words pick out. The senses of sentences are thoughts, while their referents are truth values (true or false). The referents of sentences embedded in propositional attitude ascriptions and other opaque contexts are their usual senses. Bertrand Russell , in his later writings and for reasons related to his theory of acquaintance in epistemology , held that

13542-507: The time they had to say whether or not they liked it. It was found that when asked to label items, people were later less likely to recall the specific details of products, such as whether a chair had arms or not. It was concluded that labeling objects helps our minds build a prototype of the typical object in the group at the expense of individual features. A common claim is that language is governed by social conventions. Questions inevitably arise on surrounding topics. One question regards what

13664-784: The universe, intrinsic to it and constantly bringing order to it. Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism . "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā- , nominative Mazdå , reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female) . It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā means 'intelligence' or 'wisdom'. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā- , from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh 1 , literally meaning 'placing ( dʰeh 1 ) one's mind ( *mn̩-s )', hence 'wise'. Meanwhile 101 other names are also in use. Waheguru ( Punjabi : vāhigurū )

13786-418: The use of syncategorematic words such as and , or , not , if , and every . The study of categorematic words (or terms ) and their properties was also developed greatly. One of the major developments of the scholastics in this area was the doctrine of the suppositio . The suppositio of a term is the interpretation that is given of it in a specific context. It can be proper or improper (as when it

13908-516: The vase" even for accidents. However, Spanish or Japanese speakers would be more likely to say "the vase broke itself". In studies conducted by Caitlin Fausey at Stanford University speakers of English, Spanish and Japanese watched videos of two people popping balloons, breaking eggs and spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally. Later everyone was asked whether they could remember who did what. Spanish and Japanese speakers did not remember

14030-418: The world are called theories of reference . Gottlob Frege was an advocate of a mediated reference theory . Frege divided the semantic content of every expression, including sentences, into two components: sense and reference . The sense of a sentence is the thought that it expresses. Such a thought is abstract, universal and objective. The sense of any sub-sentential expression consists in its contribution to

14152-430: The world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father. Likewise, Émile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as

14274-402: Was a separate entity but then became the universe . Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe. God is often viewed as the cause of all that exists. For Pythagoreans , Monad variously referred to divinity, the first being or an indivisible origin. The philosophy of Plato and Plotinus refers to " The One ", which is the first principle of reality that

14396-474: Was acceptable, have also argued against versions of the teleological argument and held that it is limiting of God to view him having to only intervene specially in some instances rather than having complex processes designed to create order. The argument from beauty states that this universe happens to contain special beauty in it and that there would be no particular reason for this over aesthetic neutrality other than God. This has been countered by pointing to

14518-636: Was analytically prior to thought. Philosopher Michael Dummett is also a proponent of the "language-first" viewpoint. The stark opposite to the Sapir–Whorf position is the notion that thought (or, more broadly, mental content) has priority over language. The "knowledge-first" position can be found, for instance, in the work of Paul Grice . Further, this view is closely associated with Jerry Fodor and his language of thought hypothesis. According to his argument, spoken and written language derive their intentionality and meaning from an internal language encoded in

14640-475: Was criticized in Saul Kripke 's Naming and Necessity . Kripke put forth what has come to be known as "the modal argument" (or "argument from rigidity"). Consider the name Aristotle and the descriptions "the greatest student of Plato", "the founder of logic" and "the teacher of Alexander". Aristotle obviously satisfies all of the descriptions (and many of the others we commonly associate with him), but it

14762-528: Was dominated by the dispute of the "naturalists" to the Mimamsa school, notably defended by Kumarila , who held that shabda designates the actual phonetic utterance, and the Sphota school, defended by Mandana Mishra , which identifies sphota and shabda as a mystical "indivisible word-whole". Traditional Śabda (शब्द) means relying on word, testimony of past or present reliable experts, specifically

14884-545: Was probably based on the root *ǵhau(ə)- , which meant either "to call" or "to invoke". The Germanic words for God were originally neuter , but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism , the words became a masculine syntactic form . In English, capitalization is used when the word is used as a proper noun , as well as for other names by which

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