"Essence expresses itself in grammar" (Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations).
"As with everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of language" (Wittgenstein. Zettel).
"Grammar is the logic of language" (Don Cruse).
"Grammar is autonomous" (Wittgenstein. Philosophical Grammar).
Philosophical Grammar
Grammar is an area of linguistics that studies the sentence structure of a language. Grammar is the result of organizing and regularizing the combinations of the diversity of the words of a language, with the aim of making the linguistic phenomenon intelligible. Grammar makes it possible to detect the simplicity hidden behind the apparent complexity. The aim of grammar is to discover the laws that govern particular languages, as well as the possible universal laws that govern all the languages of the world.
A distinction must be made between philosophy of grammar and philosophical grammar:
Philosophy of grammar seeks philosophical aspects, interpretations or principles of the previously analyzed grammar of a language. It is an a posteriori and bottom-up approach: from the superficial to the deep.
Philosophical grammar is a grammar built from philosophical principles; it is an opposite, a priori and top-down approach: from the deep to the shallow.
We must also differentiate between universal grammar and philosophical grammar:
Universal grammar refers to the hypothesis of a grammar underlying all natural languages. The existence of this grammar would explain why children learn any language without difficulty.
Philosophical grammar is the deep grammar of reality and which manifests itself universally at all levels of reality.
If the grammar of a language makes intelligible its structure and the universal grammar makes intelligible the structure of all languages, the philosophical grammar makes intelligible all internal (psychic) and external (physical) reality by means of the philosophical categories, the primary categories of reality, which would also be linguistic universals. A philosophical grammar would be a universal language for science, a "theory of everything" and a theory of consciousness. This grammar would necessarily be simple, abstract and of a mathematical type.
The expression "philosophical grammar" has historically been used as a synonym for general, essential, pure or universal grammar. A grammar that transcends the particular grammars of natural languages.
In practice, however, the boundary between philosophical grammar and universal grammar becomes blurred because language implies philosophy and because philosophical principles involve language. Language and philosophy are closely related.
Historical evolution
The ancient Greeks.
The search for a universal grammar is a constant throughout history, but the earliest approaches to the structure of language date back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato for using a top-down approach: everything, including language, derives from the higher world of forms; imperfect human languages derive from a higher, perfect, ideal, universal, a priori language. It follows, therefore, that implicitly Plato believed in a universal grammar. Aristotle, on the other hand used a bottom-up approach, for he analyzed language to derive philosophical categories, the fundamental principles of reality, although he did not envisage a universal grammar constructed from the categories.
Roger Bacon.
Bacon was an English philosopher, scientist and scholastic theologian of the Franciscan order, known as "Doctor Mirabilis", who emphasized empiricism as a means of acquiring knowledge about the world. He was one of the first thinkers to propose the scientific method.
Bacon was the first to postulate the existence of a universal grammar. "Grammatica una et eadem est secundum substantiam in omnibus linguis, licet accidentaliter varietur": In substance, grammar is one and the same in all languages, although they may vary in the accidental (i.e., in the non-essential). He said that he who understands one language, understands the grammar of any other language.
The Renaissance.
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that occurred in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, a transitional period between the Middle Ages and the modern world. It was characterized by the ideas of humanism, a new integrative consciousness, and a less dogmatic view of man and the world.
In this period arose the idea of establishing a universal language that would replace natural languages. It was based on the idea of the fundamental unity of the human mind, which would give rise to the unity of science and the creation of a philosophical and scientific language, with a new, more flexible logic, and which would unite all thinkers, a union condensed in the expression "republic of letters".
Descartes and universal language.
Descartes, in a letter to Mersenne in November 1629, is in favor of the invention of a universal language that would unify the expression of thought and knowledge. This idea had a philosophical sense.
According to Descartes, it was necessary to use a strategy that he called the "principle of composition" or "from the simple to the complex". Philosophy consisted in bringing to light some simple concepts (to which signs would be assigned) and from which all other concepts would be derived. These simple concepts and their combinations would form a universal language.
This principle of composition inspired George Dalgarno to elaborate his "Ars Signorum" (1661), a project of synthetic language or universal semantics. The idea was to find a set of conceptual primitives that would make it possible to express the semantics of all languages. Dalgarno, in turn, inspired Leibniz in his idea of Characteristica Universalis.
Leibniz and his Characteristica Universalis.
Leibniz conceived the idea of a Characteristica Universalis as a kind of alphabet of human thought, capable of expressing by combinatorics all kinds of thoughts. It would include a "calculus ratiocinator", a symbol-based algebra for human reasoning.
The Characteristica would be based on simple, elementary concepts or categories. Each of these concepts would be represented by a sign. A derived concept would be represented by combinations of these signs, with a system analogous to that of composite numbers from prime numbers.
In this way, the Characteristica would be a language extremely simple to learn and remember because it would rest on a logical alphabet capable of being recognized directly, without the need for a dictionary. Leibniz conceived a genuine philosophical language based on symbols and combinations of these symbols.
The Port-Royal school.
The first general theory of linguistic structure emerged in the 17th century in the Port-Royal school, as a manifestation of the rationalist philosophy prevailing at the time. This theory became known as "philosophical grammar" or "universal grammar". The work "General and Reasoned Grammar" (1660) −based on Greek, Latin and Hebrew, the languages considered the most ancient, and the result of the collaboration of the philosopher Antoine Arnauld and the linguist Claude Lancelot− presented the idea of a single general or universal grammar applicable to all languages, a general grammar that manifested itself in the particular grammars of human languages. Thus, the grammar of a particular language is a finite system of rules expressed by the universal grammar.
Port-Royal's grammar and its universal grammar have two antecedents: 1) the humanist tradition inherited from the Renaissance, which fixes its interest on the grammars of the classical world; 2) the medieval tradition, which was concerned with elaborating a speculative and philosophical grammar.
Philosophical grammar established the representation of language as a system of signs, in which the sign is a relation, an intermediary or connector between signifier and signified. This grammar enjoyed great popularity during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Wilhelm von Humboldt.
In his posthumous work "On Language, On the Diversity of the Structure of Human Language and its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species" (1836) he takes up the idea of universal internal structure and external structures from the General and Reasoned Grammar.
Humboldt highlights two ideas: 1) language reflects a worldview; 2) language is a system of generative processes: a finite set of universal rules potentially generates an infinite plurality of particular structures, all related to each other, not in a direct way, but through those universal rules.
From Port-Royal to Humboldt there was a common goal: to find in the plurality of languages some unifying principles that would reveal fundamental cognitive characteristics of the human mind.
Kant's a priori or universal grammar.
For Kant, everything happens according to rules, even if we are sometimes unaware of them. The totality of the phenomena of nature is governed by rules, including the exercise of our capacities. We follow these rules unconsciously. For example, one can speak a language without knowing its grammar.
For Kant, there is also a universal, pure, a priori grammar, which is the form of a language in general. This grammar is based on universal or transcendental concepts. Transcendental philosophy is the science of universal or transcendental a priori concepts.
For Kant, one must set aside all knowledge coming from the external world and reflect only on the form of all languages. These universal and necessary rules of thinking and refer only to the form of thought, without any content. This is reminiscent of Jungian archetypes, which are forms without content. The rules would be the principles. Logic would be the structure of the rules.
Kant indicated the possible parallel between the investigation of philosophical categories and the investigation of universal grammar.
Comparativism.
Comparativism or comparative linguistics, which arose in the 19th century, abandoned the philosophical tradition and attempted to acquire the status of a scientist, imitating the natural sciences. It sought to establish a methodology for the systematic study of the various families of languages. The aim of linguistics is to be a science of laws. Auguste Comte, the creator of positivism, classified the sciences into abstract or primary (those that discover laws about facts) and concrete or secondary (which are only descriptive). Comparative linguistics looked for laws.
Structuralism.
In the 20th century, linguistic structuralism appeared, whose main representative was Ferdinand de Saussure. His "Course in General Linguistics" (1916) laid the foundations of linguistic science. Saussure is considered the father of linguistics.
Linguistic structuralism studies the general or universal aspects that appear in all languages. Structuralism sought an autonomous linguistics, with explanations coming only from its own field. In "Course in General Linguistics", it is stated that "linguistics has as its only and true object language considered in itself". A theoretical construct then appears, language, conceived as a system of signs.
Saussure concluded that there must be an abstract system from which every speaker of a language could produce meaningful sentences. Therefore, linguistics must be concerned with the study of the abstract system of language.
Saussure formulated a series of dichotomies:
Language and speech. Language is a human sociocultural product. Speech is the use or practice of language as a communicative activity.
Language and language. Language is general. Language is particular (Spanish, English, etc.).
Signifier and meaning. Language is a system of interrelated signs. The sign connects signifier (the surface aspect) and signified (the concept). The sign is arbitrary, linear and discrete. The value of a sign is a function of its relations to other signs. Linguistics is a science of signs, so it belongs to semiology, the science of signs.
Substance and form. Substance (sounds, referents, etc.) is not part of linguistics. Language is form and not substance (this is inspired by Aristotle).
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations. The former define the value of a sign by what it is and what it is not. The second ones refer to the combinatory possibilities of the signs.
Synchrony and diachrony. The synchronic approach is the study of a language at a given moment in history. The diachronic approach studies the history of the language and its evolution.
Internal and external linguistics. Internal linguistics is scientific; language is a theoretical entity to be studied as an immanent structure; all languages internally are equal. External linguistics focuses on the context in which language lives; language as a social institution. Internal linguistics is the most important, since it studies the structure and functioning of language. External linguistics only adds contextual information.
American structuralism.
Its main representatives are Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield. The initiator of this current was Sapir, who is considered an implicit structuralist. With his work "Language" (1921), he adopts a mentalist position and attaches great importance to the cultural aspects of language.
Bloomfield is the representative of explicit structuralism with his work "Languages" (1933). He considers linguistics from an objective, immanent, positivist, empirical, behaviorist and mechanistic point of view. It is based on the observable facts of language. It ignores mental processes and meaning because they are not physically observable. Surface forms are the only objects of linguistic investigation.
Positivism.
In the 19th century linguistics emerged as a fully autonomous science, detached from everything extralinguistic, closed in on itself and with a purely formal concept of grammar. It was linguistic positivism. This movement only considered the logic of language and rejected the philosophy of language and philosophical grammar as unscientific. According to Carnap −one of its main proponents−, the aim was to eliminate metaphysics by means of the logical analysis of language.
The fundamental objective was to define knowledge by means of the logical analysis of language. Every knowledge-bearing statement had to be a statement about reality. The meaning of a proposition had to reflect or represent the structure of a fact.
Frege's philosophical logic.
Frege was the founder of analytic philosophy. His project was the construction of a tool to express precisely mathematical knowledge and natural language by means of fundamental logical principles. With Frege begins the logicist current of mathematics: mathematics based exclusively on logic.
For Frege, philosophical logic was the first philosophy, the science of thought and truth. Philosophical logic, linked to grammatical analysis, became a theory or philosophy of language. According to Michael Dummett [1972], Frege was of great importance in the project of constructing a philosophical grammar.
Russell's mathematical grammar.
According to Russell, "The study of grammar is capable of throwing more light on philosophical questions than is commonly supposed by philosophers" (Principles of Mathematics).
Russell, following Frege, focused on the analysis of sentences in language in an attempt to discover the underlying logical categories of grammatical forms. For Russell, language and reality have the same structure, the same logical form.
Russell advocated a philosophical grammar to clarify language and eliminate ambiguities and logical paradoxes. He sought a perfect, ideal, logical language that would ground mathematics. It is the logicist current of mathematics that began with Frege. Russell identified mathematical truth with logical truth.
Russell tried to create a mathematical-style logic, with a logical and philosophical grammar. He found it in mathematical logic. Mathematical logic would be the perfect language. It would also be an ideal tool for philosophical argumentation to avoid metaphysical errors. "I believe that almost the whole of traditional metaphysics is full of errors due to bad grammar" (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism).
Russell looked for atomic propositions designating atomic facts. The other propositions would be molecular. Russell, like Frege, sought a language that would achieve logical perfection. It was based on the concept of "logical atomism," a subject he characterized as "philosophical grammar."
Husserl's pure logical grammar.
For Husserl, grammar and philosophy cannot be separated. The "ideal essence" of language underlying the various languages demands a pure, aprioristic, universal grammar. A logical grammar complementary to syntactic or surface grammar.
Husserl uses the expression "pure logical grammar" as analogous to Kant's "pure science of nature." Husserl inscribes his investigation in the tradition of the universal grammar conceived by the linguistic rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Pure logical grammar has as its object the domain of meaning. Husserl was looking for essential categories of meaning, categories subject under a priori laws and combining to create new meanings. The laws that combined meanings are also a priori laws.
Wittgenstein: from logic to grammar.
For the first Wittgenstein (that of the Tractatus), logic is the foundation of language and reality. The underlying logic behind language is the logic of reality.
For the second Wittgenstein (that of "Philosophical Investigations"), grammar plays the central role that logic played in the first Wittgenstein. Logic gives way to philosophy understood as grammar. Logic is a game of language. Its necessity and objectivity derives from the grammatical character of its statements.
"Logic is the study of everything subject to rules, and the rules for using language is called 'grammar.'" Since grammar is rules, Wittgenstein's statement can be read as "Logic is the study of the rules of everything subject to rules," i.e. logic as meta-rules.
Functional grammar. The functionalism of the Prague circle.
Functional grammar is a school of linguistic structuralism. This movement conceives language as an end-oriented system of means of expression. Linguistic analysis must be carried out from the functional point of view. Linguistic universals are functional in nature. It was especially oriented in the field of phonology. Phonology is the science of the sounds of language. It is opposed to phonetics, the science of speech sounds.
Noam Chomsky's generative grammar.
Chomsky is considered the great renovator of linguistics and the creator of modern linguistics. His generative grammar is a continuation of the traditional conception of universal grammar of the Port-Royal school. In his work "Cartesian Linguistics" (1965), he sets as his goal the search for the structures and mental processes involved in language. That is why his theory has been described as mentalistic.
Chomsky was also inspired by Humboldt in considering language as a system of generative processes: the language of infinite sentences constructed with a finite number of rules. He thus generalizes structuralist grammar, which was only descriptive.
By the expression "Cartesian linguistics," Chomsky refers to a linguistic conception in the rationalist tradition of universal or philosophical grammar of the Port-Royal school, as well as in the rationalist philosophy of mind. It does not refer to the philosophical theses of Descartes, for the French philosopher devoted little attention to language, but to a rationalist and rigorously scientific view of language.
In his work "Syntactic Structures" (1957), Chomsky introduces his generative grammar, which makes it possible to formalize or mathematize linguistics by means of abstract elements. This fact makes it to be considered that linguistics is born as a true science with Chomsky.
Chomsky's revolution rests essentially on the basis that the grammatical structure of a language, i.e., the infinite set of sentences, is computable (in Turing's sense) by derivation, i.e., each sentence is representable by a series of hierarchical structures.
According to Chomsky, there is a universal grammar; linguistic ability is innate and autonomous with respect to other cognitive abilities; there is a "linguistic organ" in the mind/brain.
Most linguists accept the idea of universal grammar, although Geoffrey Sampson [2005] regards that hypothesis as unscientific because it is not falsifiable.
Chomsky has reformulated his theory several times, from Syntactic Structures (1957) to his Principles and Parameters (P&P) theory in 1986, with his Minimalist Program (MP). Principles are presented as the basic cognitive models for language acquisition. Parameters as the information linked to a particular language. With P&P he aims to overcome the conflict between the description of a language and its acquisition. PM is a research program aimed at finding a grammar with minimal cognitive resources. According to Chomsky, the universal grammar should be extremely simple and abstract, based on combinations of symbols.
Chomsky's conception of linguistic structure has varied over time. In the 1950s and 1960s he developed the concept that every sentence has two levels: a deep structure or D-Structure (containing the semantic information) and a surface structure or S-Structure (the phonological structure). Chomsky thought that there should be common properties in the deep structures of different languages, hidden under the surface structure.
In the 1980s. Chomsky proposed to distinguish between I-Language (the internal or mental language) and E-Language (the external language, manifestation of the internal language). From this perspective, linguistics would be a branch of psychology.
Montague's universal grammar.
In 1970, Richard Montague developed a "Universal Grammar." This title should not be interpreted as the underlying grammar of natural languages. Nor does it indicate that he aligned himself with Chosmky's innatist hypothesis. Montague's goal was to develop a universal syntax and semantics.
Richard Montague's thesis [1970] is that between natural languages (such as English) and formal languages (such as programming languages) there are no important theoretical differences, so that it is possible to formalize the syntax and semantics of both types of languages by means of the same general theory and within the same mathematical framework in a rigid and precise way.
Montague grammar is quite complex and requires a lot of time to fully understand. Technically it relies on formal logic (especially higher-order predicate logic), lambda calculus, and intensional logic.
Cognitive grammar.
Cognitive linguistics −which emerged under the umbrella of the scientific discipline known as "cognitive science"−studies how language reflects the workings of the mind, and sees language as integrated with other cognitive functions.
Cognitive linguistics was born with George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", a transdisciplinary, holistic or gestalt approach to language and cognition. Initially considered a diffuse proposal by linguists, cognitive linguistics is now a paradigm accepted by everyone. Proof of this is the existence of the International Association of Cognitive Linguistics, which has organized a biannual congress on the subject since 1989. There are also publishing houses that dedicate series of works on this subject.
Cognitive grammar is a development of Ronald Langecker [2008]. He considers linguistic structures as originating from general cognitive processes. The basic units of language are symbols of pairs between semantic and phonological structures. Grammar consists of combinatorial constraints on these units. Semantic aspects are modeled as picture schemes.
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar
"Philosophical Grammar" is the title of a book by Wittgenstein written during the years 1931 to 1935, the so-called "middle period" (before he wrote "The Blue Book") and published posthumously in 1969. It is the most extensive of Wittgenstein's works. The first German-English edition is due to Rush Rhees, who based it on a long manuscript of about 800 pages, in which the following comment appeared in parentheses: "My book could also be called 'Philosophical Grammar'".
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar is a thorough reworking of the chapter devoted to grammar in his "The Big Typescript". The book is organized as a collection of paragraphs with little or no relationship between them. They are reflections that admit diverse interpretations. Although its ideas are close to "Investigaciones Filosóficas", it is an independent work that intends to cover a new field.
The book is divided into two parts: 1) The proposition and its meanings; 2) On logic and mathematics.
Part One: On the proposition and its senses
It consists of 10 sections. The first 6 sections are devoted to what it means to understand a language, especially what it means to understand a proposition. The other 4 sections deal with the relationship between language and reality.
For Wittgenstein, the grammar of a language has many aspects:
It is foundational.
Grammar is the foundation and essence of a language that provides an overview of the characteristics of the language. "The essence is expressed in grammar" (Philosophical Investigations).
It is description.
"Grammar does not explain, but describes the use of words."
"Grammar does not say how language has to be constructed [...], It only describes the use of signs, but does not explain it in any way" (Philosophical Investigations").
It is arbitrary and autonomous.
Just as the rules of the game are arbitrary, so are the rules of grammar arbitrary. "The rules of grammar are arbitrary in the same sense that the choice of a unit of measurement is arbitrary ... the choice is independent of the length of the objects to be measured."
It is philosophy.
"Men are deeply embroiled in philosophical, that is, grammatical questions. A whole cloud of philosophy is condensed into a drop of grammar." The clarification or dissolution of philosophical problems depends on a proper grammatical analysis. To solve a philosophical problem consists in making it clear that the expression under which it is formulated is meaningless.
In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein sought an ideal language based on universal, metaphysical, a priori principles hidden behind the superficial linguistic forms. There was harmony and concordance between language, thought and reality because they shared the same structure.
In "Philosophical Investigations," Wittgenstein states that philosophy and grammar are both descriptive in character.
It is combinatorial.
Grammar is a set of rules that state how signs can be combined to form the propositions or expressions of language. Grammar describes the structure of language.
"As with all things metaphysical, harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of language" (Zettel).
It has no relation to reality.
Grammar never conflicts with reality. Grammatical rules are not responsible for what happens in reality. The real is independent of grammar. Grammar says what kinds of objects there are, but it does not say that there are objects whose existence it assumes.
Grammar determines what is possible. It depends entirely on our grammar what can be called possible and what cannot.
"Grammar is not accountable to any reality. Grammatical rules determine (or constitute) meaning and are thus not accountable to any meaning, being also to that extent arbitrary" (Philosophical Grammar). Therefore, the rules of grammar are neither true nor false.
Describing a grammatical rule is not akin to describing a physical fact.
The rule is not an empirical proposition.
Grammatical rules are comparable to the rules of geometry. A description of the geometry of the cube is in fact an analysis of the concept of the cube.
Language must be studied as if it were a game that follows certain rules.
The delimitation of a language is done by means of grammatical rules.
It is superficial and profound.
A distinction must be made between "surface grammar" and "deep grammar". Both grammars are involved in the use of words. The key to distinguishing meaningful and meaningless expressions lies in the difference between surface grammar and deep grammar. Shallow grammar provides homogeneity of representation. Deep grammar is the one that brings out the meaningless.
Shallow and deep grammars connect syntax and semantics, respectively. The structure of grammar has no logical foundation.
They are signs.
We must distinguish between primary signs (ostensive gestures: pointing) and secondary signs (words). The ostensive definition of words is part of grammar.
Explanations of signs do not constitute the foundation of language. Signs are superficial and arbitrary.
It is meaning.
The meaning of a word is expressed in part in how it can be used with other words. For example, the word "apple" can be used with words such as green, yellow, big small, etc., but not with flat, acute, musical, etc.
The placement of a word in the grammar is its meaning.
A proposition is a unit of understanding. It is a non-decomposable unit. It is like the jump of the horse in the game of chess, in which there is no room for half a jump.
Understanding is something unitary and is what is important and not the associated psychic processes in the experience of understanding.
Everything that is susceptible to be understood can be considered a proposition.
Grammar determines the meaning of the proposition.
Understanding a proposition is of the same kind as following a command.
Wittgenstein accepted the principle of context, a principle introduced by Frege in "The Foundations of Arithmetic": a word has meaning only in the context of a proposition.
Part Two: On Logic and Mathematics
Wittgenstein tried to connect logic and mathematics with the general concept of proposition:
Grammar.
Mathematical statements are grammatical statements. Mathematics is an integral part of the grammar of language.
Foundation.
Fundamentals of mathematics is the description of mathematics. It is the possession of the ability and knowledge required to work with mathematics. For example, to know how to calculate is to know the fundamentals of calculus.
"Arithmetic is its own application. The system of calculus is its own application."
"Calculus is only a consideration of logical forms, of structures and of itself, and by itself can produce nothing new."
Global vision.
It is necessary to have a "bird's eye" view of mathematics as a whole. This global vision must always be kept in mind.
Wittgenstein refers to the holistic principle, which refers to "all rules". Propositions are holistic entities, since they function as a whole. A change of meaning produces changes in the totality of language. One must master all the rules of chess to play chess. This is the holistic thesis of the rules.
Demonstration.
We cannot prove axioms because they are the rules of the game. For example, we cannot prove the equality A=A, but we use it to infer that "4=4".
Every demonstration requires a foundation. The foundation is the basis of every demonstration.
A proposition is demonstrable if it can be calculated.
Definitions.
Definitions play an essential role in mathematics.
Comments on Wittgenstein's philosophical grammar
Wittgenstein's thought in his work "Philosophical Grammar" is poorly structured and systematized. They are loose ideas, without system.
Principles.
Wittgenstein's reflections do not constitute a systematic exposition based on principles. He only argues against certain approaches.
Wittgenstein does not lay down fundamental principles underlying grammar and mathematics. There is no grammar in mathematics. Wittgenstein did not go so far as to clearly connect grammar and mathematics.
Wittgenstein does philosophy of language and grammar, but he does not posit an ideal grammar with philosophical foundations. He also does philosophy of mathematics, but he does not propose a mathematics with philosophical foundations.
On the autonomy of grammar.
Nothing is autonomous. Everything is founded on primary archetypes. That is why the linguist Anna Wierzbicka [1996] states that "everything is semantics", because everything derives from a primary or universal semantics.
In conclusion, everything seems to indicate that Wittgenstein searched for a philosophical grammar, but did not find it.
MENTAL, a Philosophical Grammar
Philosophical Grammar vs. Linguistic Science
According to Aristotle, science-which he identified with philosophy-is the theory of causes and their principles. Therefore, linguistics will be science to the extent that it seeks those principles. But this search task is philosophical. Therefore, according to this reasoning, science and philosophy would be the same.
Historically there are two opposing currents: philosophical grammar and linguistic science. The first is a profound vision of language. The other (like all science) is a superficial view, since it only considers the purely formal aspects. It is form versus substance. Between linguistics and philosophy lies the theory of language, which studies the common structure and underlying principles of all natural languages.
In the history of grammar we also find a dialectic between general, universal or philosophical grammar (of a higher type) and a particular, practical, empirical grammar (of a lower type). There have been periods in which philosophical grammar has predominated and others in which practical grammar has predominated.
If philosophy is rejected, the scientific no longer resides in the general or universal, but in the method. It is the "methodological monism" accompanied by the criteria of -demarcation" (Karl Popper) and "categorial closure" (Gustavo Bueno) to discriminate between the scientific and the unscientific (the unscientific as the philosophical or metaphysical).
Linguistic science studies the superficial, the linguistic phenomena, without a foundation. This foundation has to be of a philosophical, deep type.
Linguistic science does not pretend to discover the deep nature of language, for science is superficial. All knowledge must be underpinned by the deep, for if it is not blind knowledge, it is not even knowledge at all. Science is a reductionism in which methodological consistency is more important than truth.
The field of linguistics is perhaps the paradigm of the duality between science and philosophy and the field in which it is also easiest to harmonize these two poles.
The science-philosophy dualism is overcome and harmonized with MENTAL because it is based on philosophical principles and manifests itself as a theoretical and practical science.
Primary archetypes
It is a generally admitted principle that general properties of linguistic structure are common to all languages because they reflect fundamental properties of mind. But here we go further: the general properties of languages are the same as those of mind, reality, and possible worlds because they are manifestations of the same primary archetypes, which are universal and a priori.
With the philosophy of the primary archetypes everything is simpler, clearer and better understood. In simplicity is truth and consciousness.
The foundation of reality and language is not logic or grammar, but the primary archetypes that constitute both a universal grammar and a universal language. One of the archetypes is logic, configured as the primitive "Condition".
The archetypal paradigm is a universal paradigm. There is nothing more profound.
MENTAL is not a natural language, but its primitives are present in all natural languages because the primitives are primary archetypes. Primary archetypes constitute universal semantics. They are the common essence of all natural languages and of all reality.
They are the underlying patterns (archetypes) of all reality (physical and psychic). In MENTAL there is perfect correspondence between internal and external language. Given an expression (external) we deduce its semantics (the internal language). The internal language is the semantic language. The external language is the formal or syntactic language.
The primary archetypes explain why language, grammar, and philosophy are closely related.
Characteristics of MENTAL
Foundation of universal science.
In MENTAL converge depth psychology (the primal archetypes), philosophy (the philosophical categories), linguistics (the universal semantic primitives) and cognitive science (it is a model or metamodel of the mind). MENTAL can be applied to mathematics, computer science, artificial intelligence, systemics, etc. It is the foundation of universal science.
Universal grammar and language.
MENTAL is a universal language and a universal, abstract and transcendental grammar with philosophical foundation. Its lexical semantics is equal to its structural semantics.
The foundation of everything is not grammar, but primary archetypes, which constitute a universal grammar and a universal language. The grammars of particular languages can be expressed by this universal grammar.
A grammar implies a restriction of the possible expressions of language. The philosophical grammar of MENTAL has no limitations, they are degrees of freedom. It is a grammar of consciousness. MENTAL is the grammar of all grammars. With MENTAL, as a universal grammar, we can define specific languages by means of particular grammars.
To define a formal grammar we usually turn to the language of mathematics and the language of formal logic. Chomsky is the main example of this approach with his generative grammar. But these are models that are not directly related to cognitive structures or processes. In MENTAL, the theoretical models are based on primary archetypes, so they are directly related to cognitive resources. MENTAL uses its own symbology, not borrowed from mathematics or formal logic, as it transcends these disciplines.
The issue of universal grammar is related to Wigner's problem (the mysterious power of mathematics to describe physical phenomena). In both cases, the explanation is very simple: because all reality shares the primary archetypes.
Syntactic and semantic grammars.
Syntactic grammar and semantic grammar are two aspects of the same grammar. They are equivalent to Wittgenstein's surface and semantic grammars, respectively. And they are also equivalent to Chomsky's S-Language and I-Language.
Husserl was looking for a priori categories and a priori combinatorial laws to create new meanings. In MENTAL the combinatorial laws are the primitives themselves.
Semantics is inexpressible. We can only connect with the primary archetypes to form particular expressions or manifestations of these primary archetypes.
Every time we use an expression we are connecting with the deep, with the primary archetypes, with the essence of everything.
The arbitrariness of grammar.
The surface grammar is arbitrary. Symbols are arbitrary to represent expressions of primitives, even basic atoms (digits, letters, and special characters).
What is not arbitrary is the deep grammar, constituted by the universal semantic primitives and their combinatorics. Primitives are necessary truths and concepts that make it possible to create operational and descriptive expressions.
Levels of linguistic generalization
In linguistics we can distinguish 5 levels of generalization and abstraction, where each level encompasses the previous ones:
The grammar of a particular language.
The universal grammar underlying all natural languages.
The grammar of all languages, natural and artificial.
The grammar of mental, mathematical-cognitive language.
The grammar of philosophy.
The grammar postulated by Roger Bacon, the Renaissance thinkers and Humboldt are of type 2. The grammar proposed by the Port-Royal school and Saussure are also type 2.
Montague's grammar is of type 3.
Between levels 3 and 4 we can place the logical grammar, that of Husserl and that of positivism.
Chomsky's grammar is of type 4.
Between levels 4 and 5 we can place the philosophical logic of Frege, Wittgenstein and Russell.
The grammars postulated by Kant, Descartes and Leibniz are of type 5.
The philosophical grammar of MENTAL
The grammar of MENTAL is type 5, so it covers all levels:
Universal grammar.
MENTAL is the grammar underlying all natural languages. The universality of MENTAL also manifests itself in that it covers or harmonizes all linguistic paradigms, just as it covers or harmonizes the foundational schools of mathematics, programming paradigms, models of the mind, etc.
Universal grammar necessarily implies linguistic universals, i.e., properties or features that can be ascertained in any natural language. In MENTAL, the linguistic universals are the universal semantic primitives.
Universal grammar of all natural and artificial languages.
It is a language that allows to describe any language (natural or artificial). It is a truly universal language, since it is applicable to all formal sciences (mathematics, computer science, artificial intelligence, systemic, etc.).
MENTAL follows the spirit of Montague's universal grammar, in the sense that both claim universal syntax and semantics. Only MENTAL is a much simpler grammar and is also a universal language.
MENTAL allows the grammars of artificial languages to be defined. And, of course, Chomsky's 4 hierarchies can be defined.
Mathematical-cognitive grammar.
MENTAL is a mathematical grammar and also a theoretical-practical mathematical language. It is the foundation of mathematics.
Mathematics is the application of primary archetypes, where second order archetypes (such as transcendental numbers) arise.
MENTAL is the universal grammar that Chomsky seeks. It is the realization of his Principles and Parameters philosophy and the realization of his Minimalist Program. MENTAL is a minimalist grammar that uses the minimum of cognitive resources.
Mathematics, as it has been conceived throughout history, is not a philosophical grammar, because it is not based on philosophical principles, but on abstractions. Mathematics is not structured as a formal language. MENTAL provides a philosophical language, which is truly universal and transcends mathematics.
MENTAL is a cognitive grammar, since it is based on universal semantic primitives. Linguistic categories are universal and correspond to universal cognitive categories.
In MENTAL there is implicitly the metaphor of the computer, since its primitives can be considered "instructions" of a hypothetical "mental" or "philosophical computer". Its combinatorial capacity is not limited: its grammar is universal.
Philosophical grammar.
MENTAL is a philosophical grammar and also a philosophical language. The grammar/language of MENTAL is philosophical because the universal semantic primitives are philosophical categories as well as primary archetypes. The task of philosophy is the search for the primary categories on which reality is founded, as well as how these categories relate to each other.
The existence of a philosophical grammar is a consequence of the principle of descending causality. "Reality cannot be found except in One source, because of the interconnection of all things with each other" (Leibniz).
The grammar of MENTAL is the foundation (the Magna Carta) of possible worlds.
The primary archetypes are the foundation of everything: what exists and what is possible. The possible also exists but on another level of reality. MENTAL is the language underlying all possible worlds. MENTAL is a universal language, valid for the real physical world and the possible worlds.
MENTAL is the philosophical grammar postulated by Kant, Descartes and Leibniz.
Addenda
Philosophical grammar and universal language
A philosophical grammar necessarily implies the existence of a universal, philosophical or ideal language. This idea of universal language is interpreted in different ways in different contexts:
An underlying common language (more or less unconscious) that exists behind particular languages.
An international auxiliary language for human communication, the modern version of which is Interlingua.
The Adamic or pre-Babel language, the hypothetical proto-language spoken by Adam and Eve. The confusion of languages described in the Tower of Babel Bible relates the creation of numerous languages from the Adamic original.
The deep language of nature shared by living things: the green language or language of birds.
Contributions of Chomsky's theory
Chomsky has made important contributions to computer science, automata theory and formal language theory. These contributions have been key in: construction of compilers and translators, as well as in the formal specification of formal languages, especially programming languages. The so-called "Chomsky hierarchy" (described in 1956) establishes 4 levels of formal grammars, from higher to lower generalization:
Type 0 grammars. They include all formal grammars. They generate recursively enumerable languages capable of being recognized by Turing machines.
Type 1 grammars. They generate context-sensitive languages capable of being recognized by deterministic Turing machines with bounded memory tape depending on the word to be recognized.
Type 2 grammars. They generate context-free languages capable of being recognized by automata with memory stack.
Type 3 grammars. They generate regular languages capable of being recognized by finite automata.
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