"All the other Ways of Knowing are controlled by language"

Hi everyone! I have an assignment which I would like some help with to discuss my idea on:

"All the other Ways of Knowing are controlled by language" What does this statement mean and do you think it is a fair representation of the relationship between perception, emotion, reason and language?

I believe that it isn't neccesarily true, because all the ways of knowing are somewhat dependent on one another. Language doesn't control emotions, because in my opinion language whatever form may be (body language, signs speech, words), is triggered by an emotion. For example take a little child that is touching an hot iron not knowing of course the effect this will have. The child will most likely be set to cry, and from having felt pain and agony. So the emotions of agony here trigger the body language of crying. But then again, emotions cannot be expressed without language, because we need language to express our emotions through words, signs or body language. For example this child who burnt himself on the iron would not be able to let show his pain or agony had he not cried or screamed. In conlusion you can say that every action is caused by a triggered emotion in our minds that uses our knowledge of language to express these emotions. Whether it a man who is writing a novel because of passion, or a protestant debating because of anger etc.

Moreover, perception and langauge, are also dependent on eachother. We cannot percieve things we don't know the language for. For example take a boy who is staring at the sky. He sees clouds, but one is shaped like a teddybear. But the boy cannot percieve this if he doesn't know what a teddybear is. So our language limits the amount of things we are able to percive in life. However in my opnion language and perception doesn't always have to be linked together. The idea which I believe can justify this is the idea of extentialism. If we are unable to accept the outside world of our minds and belive that it is all an hallucination. Then the language in this outside world must be an illusion. Thus we use our instinctive minds of perception and reason to ackowledge so.

But there are also times when we reason with our emotions and not language. For example a woman has the difficult choice of either letting her son live or a scientist who knows the cure for aids. The woman will most likely have a lot of tormenting emotions going around in her body, since she can either let her son grow up and live or she can let many people around the world live as a result of letting the scientist live. Her choice therefore is based only on the reason of emotions.

These are some ideas that I have thought about. Since I never have studied philosophy I dont know any theories or to support my evidence if by any chance they are sensible (philosophical or psychological). So if would very much appreciate any help to improve arguments, examples and definitions. I want to structurize my essay so that it begins with a statement or a theory from someone, and then develop my essay with argument and counter arguments relating to that specific theory which obviously has to make a point concerning this topic.

As said I appreciate any help given, and I would be delighted to discuss any further observations.

Thank you on beforehand, Max

P.S the reason that i post this is because people here seem to know how to discuss well, and engage passionatly so. And if this topic is to be re-directed somewhere else where it fits better please tell me so, for I am new here.

 

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also I need arguments and example that can be linked with areas of knowledge, like Human sciences natural sciences, arts, maths etc

 

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An emotion is triggered by a stimulus. If that stimulus was verbal, then the emotion is obviously controlled by the language.

In your reasoning, consider cultural differences and differences in languages: what does one word mean in one culture and what does it mean in another culture? It often means different things. One language can have more words for a meaning than another language. What effect does that have?

I've been told that primitive peoples have less words for different colors; the conclusion made by researches was that these people saw less colors. (If I remember right, most primitive was to distinguish value, and one step up would be to recognize one color, forgot which). However, the researchers found it easy to teach these peoples different words for different colors. Obviously, just because they didn't have a word for red didn't mean they didn't see red

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I do not remember names of researchers and such, but look under science of color. Same goes for your example with the cloud and the teddybear.

 

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