Limitations/Possibilities of Language

Part I

Vico believes that there is an original system of universal truths, but in nature we have access to those thruths through language which at times could be unstable and imperfect (872). For Vico, the mind arises with knowledge/language since one should cultivate common sense (874 and 868) and train one’s memory and imagination to reach “eternal truths [that] stand above nature” (872). According to him, language serves us to uncover “common sense” and to provide a link between rhetor and audience, thus establishing communication through shared cultural and sociological issues.Vico has as his starting point the uncovering of TRUTH; yet, he situates this quest in the context of sociological “common sense” where the communication between speaker and listeners is “of the essence” (869).

Bacon seems to argue that Rhetoric links imagination and Reason, which facilitates access to reality through “the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe” (745). More so than Vico, he sees Mind and Language in a dialectical relationship; “Men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding.” (Novum Organum 746) For him, language follows the mind but it also has the power to affect and distort Reason, thus creating false Idols. These false Idols distort our comprehension of reality; therefore, our task would be to untangle them.

Part II

“I cannot but observe how little the preservation and improvement of truth and knowledge is the care and concern of mankind; since the arts of fallacy are endowed and preferred. It is evident how men love to deceive and be deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has its established professors, is publicly taught, and has always been had in great reputation” (827)

“To conclude this consideration of the imperfection and abuse of language. The ends of language in our discourse with others being chiefly these three: First, to make known one man’s thoughts or ideas to another; Secondly, to do it with as much ease and quickness as possible; and, Thridly, thereby to convey the knowledge of things: language is either abused or deficient, when it fails of any of these three.” (825)

Perception – 20 , Writing – 5, Language – 114, Passion – 4, Rhetoric -2

John Locke overtly favors clarity in language since he believes that this is the most imperfect mode for conveying knowledge. We gain knowledge of things through our perceptions; yet, when working with complex ideas, direct perceptions of things become remote and the names we use in labelling them are inherently imperfect. Rhetoric amplifies the distortion and imperfections of language, being an instrument of error and deceit.

We also tried to diagram the relationships between perception, passion, knowledge, and language and we came up with the following formulas:

Perception = mind + corporeal passion

Object/Essence àPerception àIdea