Somali Tales

A Musing on the importance of words

Representation

On the subjects of representations, Hilary Putnam (1999) mentioned “primitives” people (…), who believed in a necessary report between a name and their referent. Knowing the true name of something would give you a power over it, accepting that there is something like magical relation between the name and the object. Putnam believed that there was no such a thing, since names were contingent in his opinion, meaning that they depend on a particular context, such as people giving you that name at your birth. It could have been something else and believing the contrary amount to “magical thinking.”

But is it really what people think when they say that a name contains information about an object or a subject?

Magic itself is often performed with “words” and God is known to have created the world with… Words. His power resides in language. Meanwhile, the devil whispers to us, in order to make us sins. Language has something persuasive and invoke something special.

Religious beliefs

Many religious people hold the beliefs that names are important — this is  exemplify by the gift offered to Adam, the first man. He was offered to name all the other animals. This could have been to exemplify the power of language given to humans.

In the Quran, more specifically in the surah Al Baqarah, God says that He wants to establish a Khalifa on earth. Angels protest by asking whether God wants to establish another creature who will bring corruption, while they sanctifiy him? (S2, Verses 31–33). In his answer, God showed them He possesses knowledge they don’t and ask Adam to cite the “name of all things,” and contrary to them, he was able to do so.

This exchange has always puzzled and fascinated me. As a student of philosophy of language, I realize that the words are not necessarily what God means when he refers to the “name of all things.” 

Contrary to Angels and Jinn, Adam possesses not only language, but some form of knowledge. With his capacity of abstraction, Adam has an understanding of (all) things. And according to Khaled Abou El Fadl, from the Usuli institute, the “names” refers to the idea behind the name, or in other words, to the concept.

Putnam has a good reason to call words contingent, and to refuse any “magical” relation between a word and its reference. There are too many languages referring to the same object, making the word meaningless compared to the object. However, baptizing something gives it a certain status. In the act of naming, there is a power, but not necessary “supernatural.”

Question

This leads me to a question: what language does the Creator speaks in? I assume He understands them all. But in what language does He give commands? My own answer is related to the concepts. I believe that concepts are ideas, or “images” because I’m heavily influenced by Plato’s theory of forms. I belive that God creates something, He “imagine” them, and the word is only the power to bring the creation to reality.

Philosophy

Let’s take a quick turn to philosophy: I would love to talk about Kripke’s theory of naming and necessity, but I don’t want to scare anyone away 🙂

Simply explained, the philosopher Saul Kripke talks about proper names. He speaks about many things but asks whether objects or subjects have essential qualities?

What makes you, you, in every possible world? A possible world, is something like another dimension as shown by superheroes movies: if you have orange hair in another dimension, would you still be you? For Kripke, biological origin is a good contender: being born to the same parents in every world possible is what makes you essentially you, and not some description like a “student in philosophy,” “religious” and so on.

As for a name, the link between a child being named “Anna” and the child is the fact that two people (in general) agreed to call the child “Anna” and shared this fact with others. Once the name is established, Anna will stick, because the information will be diffused anytime she will occupy a new space. Thus, the connection is causal.

Kripke introduces the notion of “rigid descriptors,” which means that in every world possible, “Anna” will describe “Anna.” “Aristotle” will refer to the same being, in every world possible. If the great Greek philosopher became an artisan instead of a philosopher, the name will be still refer to him. However, there are several properties making Aristotle who he is, like his parents DNA.

The Name of All Things

Humans have a unique capacity to understand and acquire knowledge about the world and especially, the abstract world. Whatever the Universe contains, it has essential properties according to some religions, and out of those essential properties, God may have shared many of them with the first humans.

That is the link with Plato for me. Plato’s allegory of the cave is such an influential work and very advance for its time. A quick reminder: Plato describes prisoners in a cave who have their back turned against the doorway. From the hole leading outside, there are shadows projected on the wall in front of them, by a fire behind them. So, the prisoners believe that reality is made of shadows, meanwhile outside, there are real people.

After some time, one of the prisoners is freed and discover outside, including sunlight: surprised to discover the world in 3D, and not mere shadows. Outside the cave there are nature, the sun, and many other beautiful things which are in their true form. When he comes back to share his discovery with the other prisoners, they don’t believe him and can only see projections and believe that it is all there is to reality.

For us, modern humans, that is what our reality could be: there could be a higher dimension with the true objects, and we have only access to a pale imitation, believing this is all there is.

As a cognitive scientist, I understand the implication of Plato’s work as the following: we possess essential knowledge, ingrained in our brain, probably by millions of years of evolution. Our perception of reality is influenced by our biological needs, and are not faithful of reality (cognitive bias and so on). However, the true way of the world is available. With deep thoughts and a capacity of abstraction, we can understand how things really are.

In sum, by educating ourselves, we may be remember something we already knew about the world. Education, enlightenment, reactivates this knowledge.

Meanwhile, words are only a way to share ideas with others. In itself, it is the concept, the ideas behind the name that is truly important. The concepts is the essential property, making something unique.

Conclusion

Anyway, in this post, I tried to stay as coherent as possible, but this is a very hard subject – I’ll further explore Plato’s Republic, especially the notion of beauty in future article and his allegory of the cave.

Now, I’m wondering what what do you think? In your culture, religion, personal beliefs, what are the essential properties of a being?

Are words important? Could there be a universal language?