Max Muller And The Philosophy Of Language

Author : Ludwig Noiré
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781502325204
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (252 download)

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Download or read book The Origin and Philosophy of Language written by Ludwig Noiré and published by . This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "THE author of this work, while he awards high praise to Dr. Darwin as the discoverer of 'development,' and still higher to Max Müller as the most philosophic expositor of the origin of language, nevertheless finds weak points in the theories of both, which he thinks he is in a position to correct. The fault of Darwinism, he says, is its 'incompleteness and one-sidedness,' in that he, or his followers, refer everything to external causes, while internal qualities are ignored or undervalued. And while he regards Max Muller as ' the only equal, not to say superior, antagonist who has entered the arena against Darwin', in that he holds speech and reason to be inseparably connected, and the special prerogatives of man, yet he thinks his view of the origin of language defective in this, that he regards it as having arisen from the passive impressions received from the senses. The author of the present work maintains that language is 'the child of will, 'of' an active, and not a passive, state.' Boots of words, he says, express the actions of man, and not either objects or their qualities; thus to dig, to scrape, to scratch, to tear, and so on, found an expression before sun and moon, brightness or heat, &c. He concludes that language is 'the product of association', of will rather than of mere sensation. He does not seem to exclude emotion, for he says that such acts as dancing, singing, playing games, and so on, were accompanied by sounds which broke out from the violent stress or excitement of the common action; and this was the origin of 'phonetic types,' or roots. The other principal theories, that words imitated in their sound natural effects (bang, clang, clash, hum, hiss, &c.), or were extorted, as interjections, by surprise, fear, pain, or grief, cannot, we think, be excluded; and there is a third theory which has found of late some adherents, that the earliest language consisted of terms of endearment suggested by natural affection in parents or lovers. "Human thought, according to Professor Noire, may be traced to the memory of events recalled by certain words which became associated with certain actions. He holds it to be of primary importance to show that human thought has 'a double root', one in individual and voluntary activity, and another in the possibility of a mutual or common understanding. Language, then, necessarily implies a community of feeling, which is the same as saying that a solitary man, even if he had reason, would never have attained to language. The work as a whole is interesting and plausible, but all theories on this subject must partake more or less of the nature of guesses." -THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW