Wisdom Notes on Philosophy

Benjamin Lee Whorf

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Before the advent of comparative linguistics, Western thinkers assumed that the use of language merely followed rational and intelligent thinking. Thought was supposed to depend on laws of logic or reason, and in turn these laws were supposed to be the same for everyone, no matter what language was used. Whorf points out that this view of language was universal in the West because no one knew of any exceptions to it. If a rule has no exceptions then it cannot be seen to be a rule; it melts into the background of experience and we usually remain unconscious of it. Only when a contradiction appears do we understand what we have previously taken for granted.

European languages analyse reality into two sections: there are “things” (that is, nouns) and there are their attributes, or what they are or what they do. Essentially there is a subject (the noun) plus the predicate (that which expresses something about the subject). So European languages are classified as subject-predicate languages.

One language that illustrates a marked difference from Western languages is Hopi. In Whorf ’s view, the Hopi language dispenses with the subject-predicate orientation, and analyses reality mainly in terms of events. For example, if lightning flashed in the sky, a subject-predicate language would describe this as "lightning flashed", whereas the Hopi language would just say "flashed".  The evolutionary significance of this difference in viewpoint is profound. If some things, such as nouns, are not important to a person, then they are not likely to feature prominently in that person’s understanding of the world.

For another example, some languages have very few words for the wide range of colours. If a language has only four colour words in its vocabulary, then the language member can still separate a wide range of coloured objects into separate categories of colour; yet these separate categories that exceed his four standard ones will not be important to him.

Western languages, with their subject-predicate division, can be thought of as being orientated to patterns. Whereas languages like Hopi are process orientated. The most significant difference between these two orientations is over the issue of identity. Nouns (and hence names) give an identity. The consequences of this relation are great. The lack of emphasis in Hopi on a subject produces a sense of passivity in the Indians – personal identity is not important. Hence they see no need to evolve beyond the communal group. In my view, Western individualism could not have arisen if a subject-predicate language had been lacking.

There are Two Aspects to Thought

I have a disagreement with Whorf. I focus on two aspects of any thought.

• The forms of thinking are controlled by laws of grammar, which are laws of pattern.


• Side by side goes the reference function, the giving of names to objects.

Whorf considered that the name-giving aspect (which produces the segmentation of nature into objects or signs) is an aspect of grammar. I disagree with him. To give a name means to produce a sign, and this, in Western languages, is primary to grammar. However, I accept his view that grammar originates the flow of events. Whorf reversed the Western view on logic. Instead of language following the rules of logic, he showed that Western logic only conforms to the necessities of Western grammar. Languages like Hopi have the potential to form systems of logic that would be very different from Western ones.

Moral Influences

I give an example of the manner in which grammar controls the way that reality is viewed. I take two closely-related languages, English and French, and indicate that even moral values depend on grammar.

Where a separation of two ideas is clearly made, then we can expect that this division is of importance. Where the division is not so clearly made, so that more wordy descriptions or more contextual explanations have to be used, then we can expect that the division is of less importance. This claim may seem obvious enough, but becomes less so when we apply it to concepts that contain moral values.

The English words wife and woman are rendered in French by one word femme. To separate wife from woman in French requires either qualifying phrases or the need to understand the context in which femme is used. It is harder to establish the difference in French than it is in English. This difference between the two languages can be taken to indicate the relative importance, or lack of it, of distinguishing a woman from a wife. On the basis of this difference we should expect that a Frenchman has a more casual attitude to women in general than an Englishman has. The difference in grammatical construction leads to an expectation that there will be differences in sexual attitudes, with an average Englishman valuing sexual propriety and rectitude more highly than an average Frenchman. And this appears to be the case.

This example has, however, lost much of its current applicability because of the power of the media: casualness in sexual mores is now propagated as a norm. The boundaries of thinking are always altered by learning processes, irrespective of whether what is learned is good or bad.

In Whorf ’s view the grammatical aspect of language overrides and controls the reference or name-giving aspect. My view is slightly different.
The function of grammar is to indicate relationships.
Whereas the reference function indicates identity.

In the evolution of mankind, whichever function is highlighted depends on the needs of any community. In the Eastern world and in native societies the focus of development is on the way that life is lived, in all its relationships; hence domination of language by grammar is likely to be the rule. By contrast, in the Western world the focus of development is on achieving an understanding of the working mechanisms of reality, whence the dominance of language by signs is necessary. Perhaps the future need is to try to harmonise both approaches to reality.

Linguistic Magic

Now I look briefly at the occult aspects of language. In Ogden and Richards’ book The Meaning of Meaning they discuss name magic in chapter II.[²]. In the ancient world, words often had mysterious meaning. To know the name of an object was to have power over that object. Names and words were part of things. Names had occult power. To safeguard this power these names were sacred or secret, known only to initiates. Even in daily life, primitive peoples showed great dislike to their names being mentioned by strangers, presumably because the speaker could control people through knowing their names.

This use of names as an avenue to power can be considered to be an occult mode of philosophical Idealism (this is the concept that all aspects of reality are just mental phenomena). Here it is the signifier that is being used to manipulate the signified (the name is being used to manipulate the object).[³]

    The mediaeval period of Europe came to an end as the original influences of animism and occultism were coming to an end too. European thinking seemed to be becoming rationalist. The novelty of George Berkeley, in the early 18th century, is that he switched the focus of philosophy to the signified, that is, he switched the focus of his thinking from the name to the idea.[4]. Reality now became philosophical instead of being materialist. Philosophical Idealism had now arisen. He did this just as a new form of occultism was arising, that of science. Science was becoming the modern form of name magic, though in this case the name is now a chemical formula. Science became a social form of occult power. With formulae, science controls the material world.

The Intellectual Two-Step

Perhaps a major philosophy originates from one central question. My central question is: what is the basis of my fear?  I have had to sojourn in the realms of psychology in order to discover answers. The answers to my quest have shaped my philosophy.

The Cartesian question is: what can I know in consciousness?  For philosophical Idealism the question is: what is the meaning of perception?  Now consciousness leads to perception. Consciousness is always prior to perception and to language. Therefore the Cartesian question is antecedent to the Idealist one.

These questions can be reformulated. The Cartesian question becomes: how do I know anything?  The Idealist question becomes: why do I know anything?  In other words, the Cartesian versus Idealist debate is just a variation on the old riddle of how versus why.

There are two primary sign systems: consciousness and language. There are two primary philosophical traditions: Cartesianism and philosophical Idealism. Which sign goes with which tradition?  Saussure’s sign is arbitrary, and so it is Idealist.[5]. The sign of consciousness is not completely arbitrary, because of the dialectical component. Neither is Cartesianism arbitrary, since it incorporates empiricism; empiricism is the way to resolve Descartes’ doubt. Therefore:

Cartesianism centres on the sign of consciousness.
Philosophical Idealism centres on the sign of language.

What I have been doing in my quest is subjecting a core position of philosophical Idealism to a Cartesian critique.

[¹]. For a book on Benjamin Lee Whorf, see John Carroll (ed.) Language, Thought and Reality. MIT Press, 1956 and 1995. [1]

[²]. Ogden, C, and Richards, I. The Meaning of Meaning. [2]

[³]. The signifier and the signified are explained in the article Semiology. [3]

[4]. For a book on Berkeley, see Berkeley, Philosophical Works. Dent, Everyman's Library, reprinted 1985. [4]

[5]. See book by Culler, Jonathan. Saussure. Fontana Modern Masters, 1976. [5]

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