El "giro lingüístico": Filosofía Analítica y Hermenéutica

Summary

El concepto de la 'Gira Linguística', acuñado por el filósofo austriaco Gustav Bergman, ha revolucionado la comprensión del lenguaje y su función en la vida social. Este cambio de enfoque, que se originó a finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX, ha sido impulsado por corrientes tan diversas como la filosofía analítica y la hermenéutica. La obra de Ludwig Wittgenstein y la influencia de figuras como Frege, Russell y Austin han transformado la visión de que el lenguaje es meramente un instrumento de referencia a la realidad, a reconocer su multiplicidad de usos y juegos lingüísticos. La obra de Heidegger y Gadamer ha destacado la importancia del lenguaje en la experiencia humana y la verdad como un evento. La gira lingüística ha llevado a una nueva concepción de la razón, la conocimiento y la verdad, rechazando las esencias fijas y promoviendo una visión constructivista de la realidad y del ser humano.

Takeaways

• 📚 La 'Gira Linguística' representa una revolución en la comprensión del lenguaje y su función en la vida social.
• 🌐 Se discute desde fines del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX, abarcando diversas perspectivas y enfoques filosóficos.
• 🇬🇧 La filosofía analítica, liderada por figuras como Wittgenstein, contrasta con la hermenéutica europea, influenciada por pensadores como Heidegger.
• 🔍 Wittgenstein en su obra 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus', enfatiza la teoría referencialista del lenguaje,主张语言应清晰表述经验现实。
• 🧐 En su segundo periodo, Wittgenstein introduce la noción de 'juegos de lenguaje', destacando la multiplicidad y el uso del lenguaje más allá de la referencia a la realidad.
• 🎭 Austin y Searle desarrollan la idea de los 'actos de habla',区分了语言的'constativo' y 'performativo' funciones, y profundizan en la función pragmática del lenguaje.
• ⛪️ Heidegger en 'Ser y Tiempo', ve el lenguaje como un 'horizonte de significado' fundamental para las relaciones humanas y la existencia.
• 📚 Gadamer en 'Verdad y Método', insiste en la importancia del diálogo y la interpretación en la comprensión del lenguaje y la verdad.
• 🌟 La filosofía de la 'Gira Linguística' ha permeado y transformado áreas como la ciencia, la razón y la construcción del conocimiento.
• 🤔 Se promueve una visión anti-esencialista que cuestiona las 'esencias' fijas, especialmente en campos como la antropología y la sociología.
• 🌐 La 'Gira Linguística' ha dado lugar a una nueva forma de racionalidad, presentando la razón como caduca y plural, pero desafiante a mantener su pluralismo y flexibilidad.

Q & A

¿Qué es el llamado 'giro lingüístico' en el pensamiento contemporáneo?

El 'giro lingüístico' es una revolución en la comprensión de la lengua y su función en la vida social, impulsado por figuras como Gustav Bergman, y ha influido en diversas corrientes filosóficas y lingüísticas a lo largo del tiempo.

¿Cómo se relaciona la obra de Aristóteles 'Peri Hermenias' con la tradición clásica de interpretación del lenguaje?

La obra 'Peri Hermenias' de Aristóteles es una de las primeras obras filosóficas occidentales que aborda la relación entre el lenguaje y la realidad de manera lógica, comprensiva, explícita y formal, manteniendo una correspondencia entre el pensamiento y la realidad.

¿Qué aportó Gottlob Frege a la teoría semántica del lenguaje?

Frege contribuyó a la teoría semántica del lenguaje con su artículo 'On sense and reference', donde destacó la importancia de que los distintos 'significados' de algo apunten al mismo referente o objeto en el mundo real, lo que enriquece la información y el conocimiento.

¿Cómo Ludwig Wittgenstein complicó la tradición analítica con su obra 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'?

Wittgenstein, en 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus', amplió la concepción referencialista del lenguaje presentándola como 'teoría pictórica', donde cada proposición es una 'imagen' de la realidad, pero que también concluyó que lo que no representa la realidad empírica se vuelve 'sin sentido'.

¿Cuál es la principal diferencia entre el primer y el segundo periodo de la filosofía de Wittgenstein?

En su primer periodo, Wittgenstein enfatiza la referencia y la descripción del lenguaje, mientras que en su segundo periodo, expuesto en 'Investigaciones Filosóficas', se centra en la multiplicidad de 'usos' del lenguaje, denominados 'juegos de lenguaje', que están arraigados en diferentes actividades humanas.

¿Qué es un 'juego de lenguaje' según Wittgenstein en su segundo periodo?

Un 'juego de lenguaje' es una variedad de usos del lenguaje que están asociados con diferentes actividades humanas y que surgen y se transforman constantemente a lo largo del tiempo, siendo parte integral de las 'formas de vida' o redes de prácticas y creencias compartidas.

¿Cómo John Austin diferencia el lenguaje 'constativo' de 'performativo'?

Austin diferencia el lenguaje 'constativo', que se refiere y describe hechos, de 'performativo', que realiza una acción en el momento en que se emplea, como en el caso de promesas, declaraciones, etc., donde la verdad o falsedad no es aplicable.

¿Qué es la 'actitud performativa' de la lengua según Austin?

La 'actitud performativa' de la lengua, según Austin, se enfoca en las funciones del lenguaje más allá de su significado denotativo, y cómo las oraciones pueden 'hacer' cosas al ser utilizadas, como en el caso de la promesa o la declaración.

¿Cómo se relaciona la obra de Heidegger con la hermenéutica del lenguaje?

Heidegger, en su obra 'Ser y Tiempo', analiza la 'vida cotidiana' del 'Dasein' y cómo el lenguaje actúa como un 'horizonte de significado' en el que se instalan las relaciones entre las personas y las cosas, y cómo la relación del lenguaje con la existencia es más importante que su confinamiento a las reglas de la lógica o la gramática.

¿Qué rol le asigna Gadamer al lenguaje en la comprensión del mundo?

Para Gadamer, el lenguaje actúa como el horizonte en el que 'el mundo se nos da', siendo esencial para la comprensión y la conexión entre el mundo y el hombre, y configurándose en un 'evento' que nos obliga a ir más allá de lo que conocemos.

¿Cómo la filosofía del 'giro lingüístico' ha influido en la autocomprensión de la ciencia?

La filosofía del 'giro lingüístico' ha llevado a la ciencia a aceptar que está compuesta de un conjunto de reglas que forman otro 'juego de lenguaje', donde la verdad de una afirmación científica es provisional y sujeta a refutación, y donde la autoridad cognitiva se transfiere de la primera persona singular al plural, al 'nosotros' de una comunidad de comunicación.

Outlines

00:00

🌐 La Revolución del Lenguaje en la Filosofía Moderna

Este párrafo introduce el concepto de la 'giro lingüístico', una revolución en la comprensión del lenguaje y su rol en la vida social. Se menciona a Gustav Bergman como creador del término y se exploran dos corrientes principales de pensamiento: la filosofía analítica anglosajona y la hermenéutica europea. La hermeneia griega, la obra de Aristóteles 'Peri Hermenias' y la visión del lenguaje como un espejo de la realidad son discutidas. Además, se aborda el positivismo y la obra de Gottlob Frege en la fundamentación lógica de las matemáticas.

05:01

🔍 Frege y la Teoría del Referente

Se profundiza en la contribución de Frege con su artículo 'On sense and reference', que introduce la teoría del referente y la importancia de la referencia al objeto real en el mundo. Se discute el caso de Hesperus y Phosphorus y cómo la verdad y la falsedad ocurren en el lenguaje. Bertrand Russell y su teoría descriptivista son mencionados, así como la influencia de Russell en Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein amplía la tradición analítica con su 'Tractatus logico-philosophicus', argumentando que el significado de una proposición es su representación de hechos empíricos.

10:06

🎭 Wittgenstein y los Juegos Lenguísticos

Wittgenstein en su segundo periodo, expuesto en 'Philosophical Investigations', desafía la idea de que el lenguaje es solo para describir la realidad, introduciendo el concepto de 'juegos lingüísticos'. Estos juegos son múltiples y en constante evolución, arraigados en 'formas de vida' y redes sociales de prácticas y creencias compartidas. Wittgenstein enfatiza que seguir una regla no es un proceso teórico sino una práctica vital, y habla de una afinidad o 'resemblancia familiar' entre los juegos lingüísticos.

15:13

🗣️ Austin y la Teoría del Hecho del Lenguaje

Austin introduce la distinción entre el lenguaje constativo y performativo, y habla de los actos de habla que tienen efectos en el mundo. Define tres tipos de actos de habla: locucionario, ilocutivo y perlocutivo. John Searle continúa con esta línea de pensamiento, argumentando que cada enunciado es performativo y que la fuerza ilocutiva varía según el contexto. La importancia de la intención y el contexto en la interpretación del lenguaje se destaca.

20:17

🌱 Heidegger y la Hermenéutica del Ser

Heidegger en 'Ser y Tiempo' ofrece una perspectiva de la existencia humana (Dasein) y cómo el lenguaje actúa como un horizonte de significado para las relaciones entre personas y cosas. Critica la lógica y la gramática tradicionales y opta por una comprensión del ser a través de la poesía y la revelación (aletheia). La obra de Gadamer 'Verdad y Método' continúa esta línea, argumentando que la verdad es un evento que supera el conocimiento y que el arte y el diálogo son fundamentales para la comprensión.

25:22

🌟 La Influencia del Giro Lingüístico en la Ciencia y la Sociedad

El giro lingüístico ha llevado a una nueva concepción de la ciencia y la razón, presentándolas como constructos sociales y no meramente como representaciones de una realidad independiente. Se destaca la importancia del diálogo y la comunidad en la construcción del conocimiento. La autoridad cognitiva se ha transferido de los individuos a la comunidad de comunicación. La verdad científica se ve como provisional y sujeta a refutación, y la ciencia misma es vista como un conjunto de reglas que forman un 'juego lingüístico'.

30:29

🌍 Rorty y el Constructivismo Epistemológico

Richard Rorty argumenta que la ciencia y la filosofía actúan como constructores de realidades a través de sus 'lexicona'. Esta línea de pensamiento se integra en el constructivismo epistemológico, que sostiene que la realidad accesible es una construcción dentro de nuestras formas de vida. Se rechazan las nociones de 'esencias' fijas, especialmente en las ciencias humanas. El giro lingüístico ha creado una nueva forma de racionalidad que, aunque es caducada y plural, busca evitar el relativismo y mantener su flexibilidad.

Keywords

💡Lenguaje

El lenguaje es el vehículo fundamental a través del cual se transmiten mensajes y se establece comunicación. En el video, se discute cómo el lenguaje no solo es un instrumento de comunicación, sino también un elemento central en la construcción de la realidad y la filosofía. Se relaciona con la idea de que el lenguaje tiene múltiples usos y 'juegos de lenguaje' que varían según las actividades humanas.

💡Turno Lingüístico

El 'Turno Lingüístico' es un concepto clave en la filosofía que señala una revolución en la forma en que se entiende el lenguaje y su función en la vida social. En el video, este término se utiliza para explorar cómo la filosofía del lenguaje ha influido en la comprensión de la realidad y la racionalidad.

💡Hermenéutica

La hermenéutica es la disciplina filosófica que se ocupa del significado y la interpretación. Se menciona en el video como una corriente de pensamiento que se desarrolla en paralelo a la filosofía analítica, con enfoques más ligados a los pensadores del continente europeo y que se centra en la interpretación del mundo y del ser humano.

💡Referencialismo

El referencialismo es una teoría del lenguaje que sostiene que el significado de una expresión se basa en su capacidad para referirse a un objeto o entidad en el mundo real. En el video, se discute cómo Frege y Russell contribuyeron a esta teoría, destacando la importancia de la referencia y el denotar en la comprensión del lenguaje.

💡Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein es un filósofo influyente en la filosofía del lenguaje, cuya obra se divide en dos períodos principales. En el video, se destaca su contribución al Turno Lingüístico a través de su 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' y 'Investigaciones Filosóficas', donde aborda la idea de los 'juegos de lenguaje' y la naturaleza performativa del lenguaje.

💡Juegos de Lenguaje

Los 'juegos de lenguaje' son una metáfora introducida por Wittgenstein que describe las diferentes maneras en que se utiliza el lenguaje en contextos sociales específicos. En el video, se discute cómo estos juegos son múltiples, cambiantes y están relacionados con las prácticas y creencias de las redes sociales de las que forman parte.

💡Pragmatismo

El pragmatismo es una corriente filosófica que enfatiza la importancia de las consecuencias prácticas de las creencias y la conducta. En el video, se relaciona con la obra de John Austin y su distinción entre funciones del lenguaje, como el acto performativo, que resalta el uso del lenguaje más allá de su significado denotativo.

💡Hans-Georg Gadamer

Gadamer es conocido por su obra 'Verdad y Método', donde desarrolla una perspectiva hermenéutica del lenguaje y la verdad. En el video, se menciona cómo Gadamer critica la metodología científica exclusiva y defiende la importancia del entendimiento y la interpretación en la vida humana.

💡Construccionismo Epistemológico

El constructivismo epistemológico es la posición que sostiene que la realidad accesible a los seres humanos es en cierto modo una 'construcción', influenciada por nuestras formas de entender y nuestras formas de vida. En el video, se discute cómo este enfoque lleva a reconsiderar la naturaleza de la verdad y el conocimiento en la ciencia y en la vida social.

💡Antiesencialismo

El antiesencialismo es una postura filosófica que rechaza la idea de que existan 'esencias' o 'naturalezas' fijas y cerradas. En el video, se destaca cómo el Turno Lingüístico ha llevado a adoptar posiciones antiesencialistas, especialmente en campos como la antropología, sociología y psicología, donde se busca evitar clasificaciones y jerarquías arbitrarias.

💡Racionalidad

La racionalidad, dentro del contexto del video, se refiere a una forma de pensamiento que es fallible y plural, y que debe ser capaz de evitar el relativismo mientras mantiene su diversidad y flexibilidad. Se destaca cómo el Turno Lingüístico ha influido en la comprensión de la racionalidad, presentándola como un constructo en constante evolución y debate.

Highlights

La 'Gira Linguística' ha revolucionado la forma en que se entiende el lenguaje y su función en la vida social.

La discusión sobre el lenguaje se establece como un hilo conductor desde finales del siglo XIX hasta nuestros días.

La filosofía analítica y la hermenéutica son dos aproximaciones principales a la cuestión del lenguaje.

La hermeneia es un concepto antiguo que relaciona el lenguaje con la interpretación y el mensaje.

Aristóteles en 'Peri Hermenias' establece una relación entre el lenguaje y la realidad.

La Ilustración y el positivismo del siglo XIX refuerzan la idea del lenguaje como un espejo de la realidad.

Gottlob Frege busca basear las matemáticas en la lógica y analiza el lenguaje en su artículo 'On sense and reference'.

Frege y Bertrand Russell contribuyen a la teoría semántica del lenguaje y la verdad.

Ludwig Wittgenstein en su 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' presenta la teoría pictural del lenguaje.

Wittgenstein sugiere que lo que no puede ser dicho claramente es mejor callarse.

La obra posterior de Wittgenstein, 'Investigaciones Filosóficas', introduce el concepto de 'juegos de lenguaje'.

Wittgenstein destaca la multiplicidad y evolución de los usos del lenguaje en 'juegos de lenguaje'.

John Austin en 'Cómo hacer cosas con palabras' diferencia la función constativa y performativa del lenguaje.

Austin introduce los actos de habla: locucionario, ilocutivo y perlocutorio.

John Searle en 'Actos de habla' profundiza en la idea de que cada enunciado es performativo.

Martin Heidegger en 'Ser y Tiempo' analiza la relación entre el lenguaje y la existencia humana.

Heidegger y Hans-Georg Gadamer destacan la importancia del lenguaje en la hermenéutica y la verdad como evento.

La comprensión del texto no se reduce a las intenciones del autor, sino que depende del contexto de interpretación.

La verdad es un evento que nos lleva a ir más allá de lo que sabemos, y el arte y el diálogo son fundamentales.

La 'Gira Linguística' ha llevado a posiciones antiesencialistas y una nueva concepción de la razón como caduca y plural.

Transcripts

Well, this time we are meeting to take a panoramic look at what

the so-called "linguistic turn" meant for contemporary thought

, a name coined by the Austrian philosopher Gustav Bergman.

In general, this concept is understood as what could be considered a true revolution in the

way of understanding what language is and what function it fulfills in the broader context of social life.

It is that, in effect, the discussions on the subject of language are installed since the end

of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th as a common thread that reaches our days

through the most diverse approaches, and from a plurality of perspectives.

A first approach to the subject makes us see that, as can be seen in the title of the map,

this broader question will in principle have two main ways of specifying: on the one hand,

analytical philosophy, of Anglo-Saxon court, emerged and developed fundamentally in

the United Kingdom and, on the other, hermeneutics, more linked to the thinkers of the European continent.

But, then, the first thing to ask is: turn with respect to what? And here there is unanimity in

pointing out that, clearly, with respect to the classical interpretation of language,

already emerged among the Greeks, who alluded to their relationship with it through the concept of "hermeneia".

Hermeneia, in ancient Greek, is an ambiguous notion, although it originally points to the process in

which, through an ordered discourse, one is capable of transmitting a message, expressing and

interpreting what is revealed in it. Such interpretation is linked to the skill of the

interpreter and mediator, who, by retelling the message in appropriate words, places himself between

the source of the revelation and the recipients of the message. It is about this traditional use of the idea

of ​​hermeneia, then, that Aristotle writes Peri Hermenias, On Interpretation,

this being one of the oldest surviving philosophical works in the Western tradition to

deal with the relationship between language and reality . logically, comprehensively, explicitly and formally.

And later, in Book IV of the Metaphysics, he tells us something revealing: that truth and

falsity occur in language, in its relationship with reality. Therefore, in short, it maintains a

correspondence between thought -or judgment-, expressed by language, and reality; between the

logical realm and the ontological realm. So, for Aristotle, human beings have a

relationship with all things, or with the world, prior to any linguistic nomination.

Therefore, according to this central tradition, language is a necessary human instrument

to reflect, in the manner of a mirror, and in the most perfect way possible, reality.

Still in the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment continued to assume this conception of things, according to

which rational discourse was one in which the order and connection of ideas were identical

to the order and connection of things. So the enthusiasm for encouraging the task of

human research was growing, in order to achieve an increasingly accurate knowledge about the world.

A little later, in the 19th century, positivism would reinforce this line of thought by adding the

idea - which is familiar to us until today - that it is in science where this search is carried out in the

most solid and reliable way. It is in this positivist cultural context, then, characteristic of the

19th century, where the figure of Gottlob Frege emerges, strictly speaking, a mathematician whose search was

to base mathematics on logic. Along the way, however, it would be inevitable for him to carry out

an analysis of language in general, in order to see to what extent it can really refer to

mathematics. In this context, in which Frege seeks the correct formalization of language, it is

where he makes a central contribution in this area when he writes his article "On sense and

reference", which will soon become a new classic of "referentist" theory. " traditional. There

Frege detects that an important way in which it is possible to increase knowledge, enrich

information, is when it is understood that the various "meanings" of something, strictly speaking, allude to the same

referent, to the same object in the real world. . In this regard, his statement Hesperus is Phosphorus is famous, a

discovery that was reached when it was realized that the "morning star" or "morning star"

and the "evening star" were two aspects in which the same object appeared, the planet Venus.

It is also for this reason that this conception is called the "semantic conception" of language

and truth, since it refers to the study of various aspects of the meaning, sense

or interpretation of linguistic signs, admitting some kind of "correspondence". "with

situations or sets of things that are found in the physical or abstract world, and that can be

described by said means of expression. However, Frege would enter into a dialogue with another

very important philosopher of Mathematics such as Bertrand Russell, who considered that it happened,

for example, with an expression such as "The current king of France is bald", since at that time

France no longer had king. In effect, he detected an expression "with meaning", but, strictly speaking, without a referent.

The truth is that Russell incorporates the notion of "denotation", and his current would be called

"descriptivism" or "theory of descriptions", continuing Frege's semantic journey.

Now, Russell was, in turn, the mentor of the young Ludwig Wittgenstein, who

makes this analytical tradition much more complex, to the extent that his work marks two central milestones within it. A

first central moment occurs when Wittgenstein surprises the world with his particular Tractatus

logico philosophicus, published in 1921. In the Prologue of this book, Wittgenstein himself advances that

his work deals with problems of philosophy, and that he intends to show that the formulation

of These problems rest on the lack of understanding of the logic of our language.

So that the whole meaning of this book can be summed up in the idea that "what

can be said, can be said clearly, and what cannot be said, it is better to remain silent.

That is to say, Wittgenstein not only conserves, but that accentuates, here, the referentialist conception

of language, presented, now, as "pictorial theory", another way of

alluding to the metaphor of the mirror, reaching the conclusion that any language that

does not rigorously represent empirical reality, the facts, In effect

, according to this theory, each proposition is an "image" of reality,

but where "image" means a logical representation that expresses an

isomorphism, the same form, a "one-to-one" relationship between the language and reality.

Everything that fails to be an expression of that reality, then becomes "meaningless".

This is how Wittgenstein arrives at the shocking paradox that the Tractatus itself, by not

describing "facts", just as the theory pictorial demanded, entered also in the realm of "

nonsense", so it was to be used merely as a "ladder", to reach these conclusions,

and then be discarded. And the same fate should befall any philosophy of a "metaphysical" nature, which

does not allude to reality in the form of facts in the world. That is to say that issues such as ethics or

aesthetics, among others, which Wittgenstein recognized were the most important for human beings,

simply came to mean the "Mystic" here,

that is, something that "is shown", that "is lives", but which cannot be expressed "meaningfully". So

this line of philosophy of language aims to set the rules for its correct use, in an attempt

that even goes as far as proposing to replace ordinary, everyday language, considered a source

of misunderstanding and confusion, with a deductively constituted logical model. From here,

then, much of this line of thought would be continued by the representatives of the so-called

Vienna Circle, which would maintain Wittgenstein's conviction that only

rational discourse, typical of empirical science, is what , strictly speaking, can say something with sense.

However, after an impasse in his life and his work, Wittgenstein would give rise to a

second period of his production in which, between 1941 and 1949, he wrote writings

that would be published after his death - in 1953 - as Philosophical Investigations.

There many think they see an even more notorious participation of Wittgenstein in the linguistic turn.

It is that, in effect, the central idea of ​​Wittgenstein, here, is that it was a serious mistake to consider that the

only function of language was the denotative or descriptive of reality. On the contrary,

Wittgenstein now detects that there are countless "uses" of language, based on the most diverse

activities carried out by human beings, and this is what he calls "language games".

Indeed, for Wittgenstein now such "games" are multiple; and that multiplicity is not

fixed, it is not something given once and for all, but new types of language, new

linguistic games, arise permanently, while others "age" and are forgotten.

Thus, Wittgenstein reviews some of them and lists: describe an object by its appearance

or its dimensions, refer to an event, make conjectures about the event,

develop a hypothesis and test it, invent a story and read it, recite in the theater, sing,

solve riddles, solve an applied arithmetic problem, translate from one language to

another, ask, thank, greet, beg... All these "games" are rooted in "ways of life",

various social networks of practices and beliefs in common , which are not given.

Such practices are those belonging, for example, to the legal, pedagogical,

religious, artistic, and so on. So, as Wittgenstein sees it, these games

involve various processes in the use of words and according to certain rules.

"Following a rule," says Wittgenstein, is a process analogous to obeying an order.

We are trained for such obedience. In fact, that is what the

learning process consists of, until the application of the rule becomes customary.

Therefore, following a rule is not a theoretical process, but a vital praxis.

Wittgenstein speaks of a kind of affinity between them, a kind

of "family resemblance", which connects the different language games with each other, just

as it happens with board games, such as, for example, between checkers and chess. .

In other words, with this second Wittgenstein, the step would be taken to the

"pragmatic" approach to language, according to which what is decisive to consider, more than merely

the meaning of the expressions themselves, is their "use", what is does with them.

This line of work, in turn, would be extended by John Austin,

who continues to focus on natural, everyday language,

and around it writes a series of lectures published, also

posthumously, in 1962, under the name of How to do things with words.

Austin makes a crucial distinction there between the "constative" or "denotative" function

of language, proper to the Tractatus, as when "the cat is on the carpet" is stated,

and the "performative" or "performative" function of language, as the one that occurs in a

linguistic emission of the type "close the door, please", or "I promise that I will give you back the book".

Indeed, such emissions are no longer likely to be "true" or "false." In this context, Austin

deepens the analysis of the functions of language and detects the existence of

"performative verbs", which "do" things, at the moment they are used,

such as promise, declare, wager, inaugurate, baptize, expel, and so on.

For example, as when a Justice of the Peace says: "I declare you husband and wife." We cannot go to verify

if the statement is "true" or "false". With that statement, the Justice of the Peace "does" something when pronouncing it, it

produces an effect on the addressee. In this case, it turns that couple into spouses.

And that "speech act" can be compared to a move that, as in any game, obeys

very precise rules. On the other hand, Austin distinguishes between three types of speech acts:

"locutionary", "illocutionary" and "perlocutionary".

Locutionary act is the one that is carried out by the fact of saying something, like "I baptize you", for example.

Illocutionary act is the one involved in the intention of the speaker, its

immediate purpose, that is, that child becomes a new member of the Church.

And the perlocutionary act is the effect or consequence that the speaker causes in the receivers of the

message, that is, that from that moment on, everyone considers that child a member of the Church.

Later, John Searle, in his 1969 book Acts of Speech, will delve further into the

issue, already noted by Austin, that, ultimately, every statement is performative,

every statement involves an "action." That is why he focuses on

Austin's illocutionary acts, developing the idea that several sentences with the same propositional content

can differ in their illocutionary force. It is that, as we saw, the statements

themselves "say something", but their proper meaning and interpretation do not depend only on

that content, but require a defined linguistic context to be interpreted.

If, for example, the same expression such as "tomorrow I will go" depending on the context can have many

different intentions or illocutionary acts such as warning, threatening, comforting, consoling, hoping, etc.

or if we say "it is cold here", an apparently descriptive statement, the illocutionary act

can pretend that someone, for example, closes the window or gives them a coat or, in another context,

it can mean that it will not be a good place to come to live, etc. As we see, then, all

these developments would go from the merely semantic and denotative approach, to the

pragmatic analysis, which in itself already constitutes a decisive turn in the consideration of language.

During those same years, however, another important line of philosophy of language

was making its way onto the European continent. Following in the footsteps of Friedrich Nietzsche

and the tradition of German romanticism, which revalues ​​language in a

non-scientific sense, but rather as a founding element of human experience, the philosopher Martin Heidegger

works profusely in the elaboration of his great work: Being and Time. In being and time, Heidegger

analyzes the "everyday life" of "Dasein", a German word that literally means "to be-there",

but has also been translated as "to be", or "to exist", and which alludes, precisely, to to the human being.

Therefore, Heidegger performs, in the first place, an analysis of those

everyday aspects of that entity that we are, which he calls "existential".

Thus, in the fifth chapter of the first section of Being and Time, the constant

"being open to the other" is deepened, from a horizon, from a structural context that characterizes Dasein.

Language is understood here, then, as a certain "horizon of meaning",

in which the relationships between people and things are installed.

Thus, the relation of language to existence is for Heidegger far more important than its

confinement to the rules of logic or grammar. On the other hand, Heidegger opposes

traditional thinking that tries to explain things through "causes." Instead, he opts

to "welcome" and "let be," letting the phenomenon "show" in its own unique way.

This attitude deepens even more when Heidegger shows signs of a turn in works

such as Letters on Humanism or Introduction to Metaphysics, in which he gradually gives

more and more centrality to language. On the other hand, since Being and Time Heidegger

had wondered about a key concept in the history of metaphysics: the notion of "truth",

which, as we saw, in Aristotle was defined as an "adequacy between the idea and the thing ".

Heidegger now focuses on the concept of "aletheia", a term actually used by pre-

Socratic philosophers to refer to truth.

This is because Heidegger finds it highly significant that the etymology

of that term is, strictly speaking, "disclosure", "unconcealment" or even "un-forgetting".

That is, revelation of what has previously been hidden.

For Heidegger this period, the way in which such unveiling of being is carried out

is something that occurs fundamentally in poetic language.

Thus, for Heidegger, it is not man who "speaks language", but language

that "speaks to man" and, as he conclusively states in the Letter on Humanism

of 1946, "language is the house of Being", to the extent that poetry manages to refer

to that fundamental dental background in which men and things are inscribed.

Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer publishes, in 1960, perhaps the most

relevant and incisive text regarding the question of language in a hermeneutic key: Truth and Method,

although the approach of the terms "truth" and "method" is made here in a controversial way,

as a resistance against the claim of exclusivity of scientific methodology.

Furthermore, Gadamer is critical of modern approaches that seek to model

the method of the human sciences after that of the natural sciences,

because for him, as for Heidegger, "understanding" is central to existence;

human beings live in the world understanding and interpreting it,

so that language is configured as that which "has always been" giving rise to the link

between the world and man. Also central will be his idea that, whenever we approach a text,

we do so from a "pre-understanding", some prior idea of ​​what is said there.

As we deepen the reading, this conception varies, and is going

to be reformulated, depending on whether said reading confirms or alters our pre-compression.

But since this process can go on forever, we can never say that we have found

the final and definitive interpretation. In turn, Gadamer thought that the meaning of

a text is not reducible to the intentions of its author, but is dependent on the context

of interpretation. So a text always demands a true "fusion of horizons", where

the history of the text itself is articulated with the cultural and historical background of the reader. Therefore

, the comprehension takes place at the moment in which the interpreter's horizon, when related

to the author's, is enlarged and manages to incorporate it, forming a "new horizon".

So, there is a deeper truth than the scientific one.

The truth is an "event", an "event", something that forces us to go beyond what we know.

And in that he compares this situation with the game, in which the players are subsumed in something

bigger than themselves. In this sense, it grants a privileged place to art, given that art requires

the spectator to distance himself from himself and, after interpreting the work, return thus transformed.

Finally, it also focuses its attention on dialogue, as the genuine willingness to offer

one's own reasons and accept those of others, in a "productive tension" that, by definition, never

ends, because the truth that is sought, strictly speaking, cannot be reached. In all these

activities, then, language acts as a horizon in which "the world is given to us." "The being

that can be understood is language", Gadamer will say here. It is that, if for positive science or for

enlightened reason, "we inhabit nature", for hermeneutics, on the other hand, "we live in a world", in the

sense of "medieval world" or "modern world", in a worldview. That is why it is considered that it was Gadamer

who transferred the traditional object of study of hermeneutics, which in principle were

the texts, and especially the sacred texts, to cultural and social facts in general.

Later, in relation to this entire line of interpretation in a broad sense,

the most diverse thinkers would emerge, such as Paul Ricoeur, Gianni Vattimo, in his own way Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze,

Jacques Derrida, Jean François Lyotard, and Júrgen Habermas. , Karl-Otto Apple, all of them having

in common, as Váttimo would point out at a certain moment, belonging to the "koiné" of our time,

that is, to that "language in common", which, as Wittgenstein said, radiates a "family resemblance". "

in his way of understanding the role of language. Moreover, gradually, even the self -understanding

of science will come to terms with this vision of things. Science today accepts

to be made up of a set of rules that constitute one more "language game".

It is that, from this new conception, the statement is not scientific because it says "something true about

the facts", it is because it respects certain rules of the game, among which is, clearly, the fact

of pretending to say something true. But its truth will only be accepted as provisionally valid,

until someone can refute it, because, in effect, one of the main rules

of the scientific game is that the evidence provided must be susceptible to refutation.

Another important rule here is if I talk about something that no one but me

can observe, those statements will not be considered valid.

It is a question, then, of convincing the addressees of the validity of a statement so that they

accept it. This "sociologization" of knowledge now means that cognitive authority

is transferred as never before from the first person singular to the first person plural,

to the "we" of a communication community. In this way, knowledge is no longer the result

of the encounter of an "independent reality" with isolated and passive individuals, but the product

of the interaction of human groups based on interests and objectives.

Hence, the American philosopher Richard Rorty went so far as to say that if Europe,

at the time, decided to abandon the cosmology of Ptolemy, to adopt

that of Copernicus, it was because Copernicus' "lexicon" was more subtle and convincing.

Or that, once what "could be done with a Galilean lexicon" had been discovered, no one

was much interested "in doing the things that used to be done with an Aristotelian lexicon." Therefore

, as Rorty says in his renowned book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, this

line of thought assumes that metaphysicians and scientists of all times,

as Nietzsche maintained, basically act as breeders like " poets who ignore themselves as such".

And this is integrated, in turn, into the position called "epistemological constructivism",

which maintains that the reality accessible to human beings is, to a certain extent,

a "construction", in the sense that there is no access to a "independent world" of

our ways of understanding, framed in forms of life. Perhaps also for this reason

the signs of the times have made the linguistic turn lead us to

"anti- essentialist" positions, which rule out alluding to "essences" or "natures" that are fixed and closed

forever, particularly in the anthropological, sociological and psychological field. , that is, before the "human phenomenon",

so often subjected to arbitrary forms of classification and hierarchy.

In short, the philosophy of the linguistic turn has created a new form of rationality, a reason

that is now presented as fallible and plural, but whose challenge cannot be greater, since it must be

able to avoid the "anything goes" maintains its pluralism and its flexibility. As we can see, it

is a turn that has not only revolutionized the philosophy of language itself, but also permeates,

completely, the deepest debates of this complex world that we continue trying to design.