Here's a guy seeking an empirical answer to the big question of the past 100 years:  does our language determine our thought?  That is, are we limited to thinking about things for which we have words?  I used to believe the answer was 'yes'; now I'm pretty sure it isn't.

Having words for things certainly makes the thinking easier, but obviously new words are created all of the time.  How could we invent new things if we couldn't think beyond the limits of the existing language?  How could there be a teletubby or an ipod?

There is a deeper question, of course, and it is the question of the book I'll be studying this fall, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.  Does our way of thinking (Kant), or the structure of our language (Wittgenstein), or the physiology of the brain (Pinker), determine the kind of reality which we experience and consequently the shape of our knowledge?

I don't think the kind of experiment that this man is doing can answer that deeper question, nor could any experiment, for that matter.  All experiments must go on within the confines of our ability to know.  This is why we have philosophy-- it addresses the issues which provide the foundation for all scientific investigation.

8:26:08 AM    comments? []