# Logic vs language. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 4, 2002, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324 "2002-12-04T01:26:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/1 "2002-12-04T01:26:09Z")
The meaningless threads have only inspired this question. Which is a better model of how knowledge acquistion really works? Not in some philospohical abstract sense but in the real down and dirty world of knowledge acquisition by real people and by real societies. My vote is for language over logic. Logic is a construct that starts off with a declaration of its rules and axioms and then deduces all else. Language does no such thing. True, we may have an inate wiring for language acquisition, a language instinct as it has been called. But we acquire the concepts of language inductively and can learn any variety of rules. The concepts can morph and shift with new experiences. And this is how we really acquire knowledge about the world, both as individuals and as societies. My position is that the acquisition of language from infancy into adulthood is a better model of epistemology than any logical construct with its artificially constructed _a priori_s. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/2 "2002-12-04T01:54:21Z")
You might be interested in _[Philosophy in the Flesh](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465056741/qid=1038966584/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5458837-4369631?v=glance&s=books)_ by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (assuming you haven’t read it). Their premise is markedly similar to yours. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/3 "2002-12-04T02:53:40Z")
And from where, exactly, do you think that logicians decide which axioms to set forth? I’m not sure why you think philosophy lives in some abstract tower separated from the experiences of daily life, but perhaps you are reading the wrong philosophers. As to natural language as an epistemological base, it is no more or no less secure than any other. It’s a bit messy for my personal taste, but I never have cared to place Orwellian limits upon the human capacity knowledge. If nothing else, the very process of language development would seem to argue against language as a defining boundary of human knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/4 "2002-12-04T03:59:48Z")
i don’t think either do an adequate job of describing the process of knowledge acquisition or representation. nor do i think the two are really comparable. first of all, i do not think logic represents a language. it does not provide a means of communicating knowledge. it tends to govern variables more than propositions, and the rules that determine validity do not represent definite portions of reality (other than the rules themselves, of course). without a language with which to form propositions, logic can not be used to say a whole lot. rather, it governs what we can meaningfully say with a given language. also, i agree with spiritus by saying that to claim language provides our only means of knowledge representation places a rather strict limit on what we can represent. haven’t you ever said “i can’t put it into words”? granted, the very message conveys the idea of something that can’t be put into words, but it doesn’t adequately convey what the specific feeling is. in my opinion, language and logic are made up of atoms (not the bohrian kind), and these atoms might represent concepts, or boolean values, i don’t know, but certainly there are things representable by the atoms that you can’t say with language. so there isn’t really much to argue over. -d-squared ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/5 "2002-12-04T11:23:12Z")
Not all logic is deductive, either. In fact, induction is required to establish a deductive system. See Peano’s fifth axiom, for example. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/6 "2002-12-04T14:30:47Z")
Formal logic is just a special case of language in general. Language is just the symbolic representation of concepts, which act in certain ways because of their physical structure. Two concepts are incompatible because their physical representations are incompatible. While concepts can be represented in many different physical configurations, all those patterns must share certain features if they truly stand for a particular concept. The actual symbols used in a language are arbitrary, but the symbols point to concepts which are the most basic elements of logic. All language is logic, but not all logic is language. Non-linguistic logic can’t be communicated, however. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/7 "2002-12-04T15:53:34Z")
You were doing great until your penultimate sentence. These: > [@](#): > > Formal logic is just a special case of language in general. and > [@](#): > > All language is logic, but not all logic is language. either contradict or are equivocal. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/8 "2002-12-04T16:36:21Z")
I think he escappes that with his inclusion of “non-linguistic logic”. I have no idea what that menas, but I am gueesing that it is not a formal logic. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/9 "2002-12-04T16:40:23Z")
I acquiesce to your judgment, Spiritus. […looking back over shoulder while exiting room…] ---
**Author:** ![Fatwater\_Fewl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/10 "2002-12-04T16:55:56Z")
I’m neither a logician, nor a philosopher, but I am hooked on language. **TVAA** ’s statement makes an intuitive sense to me if it is reversed: All logic is language, but not all language is logic. I want to know what non-linguistic logic is – or _if_ it is. Does it have any meaning? ---
**Author:** ![Fatwater\_Fewl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/11 "2002-12-04T17:03:56Z")
I’m not sure my intuition is correct, though. I was thinking of poetry and metaphor etc, where something might be said in a way which makes no sense in the physical world but still conveys meaning in the context of the poem. But that it conveys meaning means that it conforms to the poem’s internal logic, so it is logical. ? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/12 "2002-12-04T17:12:19Z")
> [@](#): > > But we acquire the concepts of language inductively and can learn any variety of rules. And we don’t learn logic this way? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/13 "2002-12-04T17:18:48Z")
It’s entirely possible to possess a concept without having a symbolic referent of the concept (language). As such, it’s possible to have logic (concepts which interact) without a system of symbols to represent the concepts. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/14 "2002-12-04T17:25:09Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s entirely possible to possess a concept without having a symbolic referent of the concept (language). I’m interested. Fire away. ---
**Author:** ![Fatwater\_Fewl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@Fatwater\_Fewl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatwater_Fewl)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/15 "2002-12-04T17:30:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide \* > \*\*It’s entirely possible to possess a concept without having a symbolic referent of the concept (language). > > \*\* I’m interested too. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/16 "2002-12-04T17:42:27Z")
Hmmm . . . it seems analogous to saying that anytime we have sounds we have music. I’m not at all sure I agree with that usage, but I’ll wait to see where you take it. ---
**Author:** ![loinburger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/db5fbb/32.png) [@loinburger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/loinburger)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/17 "2002-12-04T17:42:55Z")
It’s possible to possess a concept without having a _semantic_ referent of the concept (it happens all of the time, f’rinstance when you’re thinking of a particular concept but can’t at the moment think of the word that refers to the concept (“What’s the word that sort of means [this] except that it also means [this other thing] and doesn’t mean [that]”, or “Hey, hand me that thing over there. No, not _that_ thing, the _other_ thing”)), but semantics aren’t the only viable symbols. It’s also open to question as to whether you’d even possess the concept had you never even heard the word(s) (which you’ve forgotten) that refer(s) to the concept. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/18 "2002-12-04T17:48:19Z")
But in that instance, your semantic reference is what you have in quotes. For me, it usually manifests in an almost audible, “Damn, what IS it?” It is a temporary assignment, to be sure, but an assignment nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/19 "2002-12-04T17:49:08Z")
True, **loinburger** , but that’s just to point out that words are not necessarily base conceptual structures inside of a language. I don’t think it is appropriate to insist that there is a direct map for concept -\> symbol or any other way you care to point that arrow. Sometimes it takes a sentence to say something. Why do you suppose that should make a difference? Also, why can’t pointing be semantic? Doesn’t it mean something to point? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324/20 "2002-12-04T17:49:34Z")
> [@](#): > > From [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com): > > Symbol > > 1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. See Synonyms at sign. > 2. A printed or written sign used to represent an operation, element, quantity, quality, or relation, as in mathematics or music. > 3. Psychology. An object or image that an individual unconsciously uses to represent repressed thoughts, feelings, or impulses: a phallic symbol. The written/printed symbol “2” has nothing to do with “twoness” except to people who are taught that it means that. The written word “cat” has nothing to do with felines. The spoken word “cat” has nothing to do with felines. The concepts of twoness and feline are patterns of activation in the brain… which we currently have no way of transmitting from one person to another. In all probability, we’d need some way to standardize brain states, since all brains aren’t identical. If we had such a method, it would be a universal language for humans. (Greg Egan’s TAP is an example of such a hypothetical language.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/logic-vs-language/140324.md?page=2)