Interpretation of language in philosophy of logical positivism and linguistic analysis

Abstract

Summary. This paper attempts at analyzing the phenomena of the language from the point of view of philosophy of logical positivism and linguistic analysis. The authors applied the basic approaches of the theory of the philosophy of logical positivism and philosophy of linguistic analysis, especially the principle of connection between content and form of knowledge, L. Wittgenstein’s theory of meaning and the idea that the meaning depends on the context. Wittgenstein viewed philosophy as linguistic analysis with its focus on language and “language games”. Words serve as tools, and can fulfill different functions. The same is true about linguistic expressions. Some propositions can be used to picture facts, others cannot. Such linguistic flexibility led Wittgenstein to the conclusion that people used to play different “language games” because they belong to different social, professional and cultural groups. Accordingly, the main task of philosophy is the clarification of meaning. The meaning of a proposition is to be understood in terms of its context, i.e., in terms of the rules of the game of which that proposition is a part. The main way of solving these philosophical and linguistic tasks is the therapeutic process of examining and describing language in use. The authors systematized and outlined a considerable diversity of views of representatives of logical positivism and linguistic analysis regarding the nature of language and logic of thinking and communication. They concerned clarification of the meaning of specific linguistic expressions, phrases and words as an essential step in making philosophical assertions clear and unambiguous; determining the general conditions that must be met for any linguistic utterance to be meaningful; establishing criteria that would distinguish between meaningful and nonsensical sentences. The purpose of linguistic analysis is to describe and systematize elementary (atomic) facts. To be meaningful, statements must be reducible to linguistic utterances that have a structure similar to the simple facts pictured; and only propositions based on facts are considered factually meaningful. The undertaken analysis of the basic views of main representatives of logical positivism and linguistic analysis allows making the conclusion concerning inseparable connection between content of knowledge and forms of its language manifestation, but this correlation can take different forms and the task of the systematic philosophical and linguistic analysis is to define the most relevant of them.