Words are like statistics; symbols in sounds and
scratches in order conveying impressions and meaning to-others and
for-one-self. A good post-modern for the philosophy of language and truth values
context still has room for the existence of truth phenomenally though letters,
phonemes, morphemes, and larger language structures are regarded as statistical
structures with appearances in discrete orders conveying phenomenally
associated meaning.
If language is like a realm of statistical,
existential tools for data transfer it's values for users are comparable to
statistics and data used by scientists in order to describe experience,
perception and functions of systems. Also as in science data values have
meaning in relation to the construction where they occur. The meanings vary in
relation to the context of the application.
The value of language isn't found within an
implicit truth or falsehood of words but in the art of their use and
construction. The Lord Jesus Christ may be the Truth-in-itself yet that can't
be said of anything else. While liars will not inherit the kingdom of God
implicitly failing to understand the Truth in their unbelief, in the secular
world there isn't a Platonic truth-in-itself that can be perceived or not
inherently in word-objects.
Each user of language is a word artist
experiencing a vast impressionist four-dimensional lexicon that is malleable
and particularized with the user's own values and understanding. Yet like a
scientist the user of language need be always aware that his or her use of
language is their own responsibility and for-themselves they must determine the
use and value of words as true or false in relation to suppositions given about
them. A scientist needs to test and verity data and test the criterion of use
of the data and so must language users have an implicit skepticism about the
validity of words. At the least, words can be used in non-unique contexts with
different values, can be interpreted by differing users with differing meaning
and inevitably remain a phenomenal tool for the art of communication.
Words have no inherent capacity for harm. Words
may be used harmfully yet generally one of two conditions needs to prevail for
that to occur. One is the intent of some real individual to do harm to another
or others; in that case it is the bad will that is the cause of harm and the
words simply a device for getting that done.
The second source of harm done through words is just misunderstanding by
the user interpreting word meaning.
For an example if a paragraph has description of
how to deploy a lifeboat and escape global warming and one that reads the
instruction in a second language misinterpreting the instructions thinking it
says to scuttle the boat instead of launch it, following the instructions would
result in harm.
Jean Paul Sartre wrote a tome named The
Critique of Dialectical Reason in which he elaborated upon a theme in Being
and Nothingness where the social dialectic of interaction among factory
workers was considered from the point of view of several individuals
experiencing the existential context. Language too is a social dialectic to
which each individual has the ability to say No to anything. Mumbo
Jumbo, god of the Congo may put a hoo-do on you, yet it is the ill will and
actions rather than words that do the harm.
It was the executioners of Auschwitz and the ill
will of Joseph Mengele and others that did the harm rather than simply the
words. Words without substantive action attached to them in some way tend to be
less even than meaningless symbols. An ancient untranslated text has meaning
only because of it's potential for translation and value about the culture it
was produced in. Otherwise except for being an enigma it would be merely an
interesting object of art even one without potential for meaningful translation
generated perhaps randomly by a computer.
Users of language are recognized with a
utilitarian valuation for the accuracy and meaning content value as well as for
the tone and method of delivery such as one might associate with singers.
Language generators with accuracy and less dissimulation than the norm are of
more practical value for many and preferred in several contexts by language
receivers and generators.
A language universe of words as statistical units
with the potential for infinite variety of group formation and meaning values
may be something like a sunrise that can be viewed by billions of people a
little differently from one another with or without similar filters, points of
view or space-time facts. In language however each sunrise is constructed by
the language users albeit with much presumptive text and structure inserted by
convention. For human beings though, the language use is always live and
subjective.
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