Language is something that to many philosophers is an impossible hurdle- for we might understand something in our minds, but are unable to communicate our ideas. Also, many philosophers wonder about the nature of language, wondering if it's innate, necessary, or flawed in idea. One of these wonderful philosophers is Wittgenstein, who struggled immensely with communicating (had a stutter, paused mid-sentence, ect) grew so fed up with the whole thing that he moved to a hut in Norway and became another of the hermit-philosophers that so obsess me.
The philosophy of linguistics and communication is considered by many who do not dabble in this field to be arbitrary, since of course we need language and we use it all the time without problem thank you very much. There are many languages, even, to choose from, so what's the big hoo-hah?
Well, language poses as a brutal flaw to the logical positivist that is Berkeley (see Locke's Empiricism if you want) but some points still stand. The acquisition of language is vital for the acquisition of some knowledge, and one of the defining things about humanity is that we communicate ideas through language, thus we are able to learn more complex things. Although we are not born innately with the knowledge of language, we are able to acquire it so that's good.
Berkeley postulated that we know language and learn it through "operant conditioning" which is the application of a sound to a visual stimulus. It was proven bunk by Noam Chomsky, who refuted it by saying that if that's all we got to know words, we would never know words, bruh. Chomsky also pointed out that two people talking can arrange words into totally unique sentences that no one has ever heard before, yet both know the meaning.
Moreover, Chomsky says that grammatical mistakes that involve correctly conjugating an irregular verb as if it is regular is something that a person born with acquired linguistics would not do- thus, we have a basic innate understanding of how things ought to be done, but we have to learn the irregulars through toil.
The problem of communicating ideas is more deeper than just incorrectly constructing new sentences. Wittgenstein (the hermit in Norway who enjoys talking about talking) proposed a revolutionary idea that reshaped how we think about talking. Language itself is totally stupid and doesn't tell us anything. The sounds that the words "purple elephant" make when spoken are utterly arbitrary, however, humans are able to hear those sounds and construct a picture in their minds.
While this makes perfect sense, really, it quickly becomes apparent that we are sucky bad at perfectly reconstructing our pictures in the minds of someone else. This means that we miscommunicate all the time. Thus, Wittgenstein proposed that if you don't have something really good or really precise to say, don't say anything. Anyway, Wittgenstein wasn't done. He later postulated that all communication is is just this silly word game.
What this means is less of a game, really, more like intention. Person A speaks to Person B, saying a comforting sentence which Person B interprets as a sarcastic one. This implied meaning is impossibly hard for someone to grasp. So, in addition to not being able to reconstruct pictures, we fail to understand the stuff that floats around the pictures to give them meaning. Thus, in Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy, it is so much easier to just not talk at all and live a quiet life alone. However, we can't all do that, so we're stuck playing this vicious game with each other.
He also talks about how use of language with others is more like a tool to understand ourselves. Which is kinda true.
I am just gonna include this little snippet at the end here about use of language in conjunction to eastern philosophy, particularly Taoism. The very first teaching in taoist philosophy is that one cannot understand the Tao through language or study, that it is ineffable, and studying the Tao is as fruitful as throwing the Tao Te Ching into a river. This is probably due to the fact that our languages simply cannot capture truth accurately, so it is better to not try at all.
In the 20th century, revolutionary thinker Derrida, (the guy that moved philosophy from the Socratic method of asking questions to find answers to deconstructing a concept so utterly that one can find the core idea within) began to question the value of communicating with others as well. While he wasn't a hermit like Wittgenstein or Nietzsche, he didn't believe that the only way to philosophize was through philosophical discussions. He preferred writing, and published over forty books within his lifetime.
Derrida's big idea was that, in a set of two ideas, we hold favoritism for one almost always. This skews perception of things, and causes us to make assumptions. Which is bad for communicating ideas, truly. He wanted people to remove this assumption and preference for one thing and to pay more attention to the counterparts, for he felt that in doing so, we gain wisdom.
