Understanding Language: The Illusion of Language as a Tool for Comprehension
How Our Limited Linguistic Frameworks Shape, and Constrain, Our Understanding
Note: This essay was prepared with the research assistance and ghostwriting of ChatGPT 4.0.
Author’s Preface
As I’ve continued my exploration of human understanding, I’ve found myself revisiting familiar topics: the nature of language, its limitations, and the pervasive belief that we can capture the essence of reality through words. From time to time, I reflect on the question of whether our cognitive and linguistic tools are sufficient for grasping the complexities of the world—or even our own minds. Despite having long explored these themes in my writings, I still marvel at how our conversations on seemingly straightforward topics, like sympathy and empathy, can shift so easily into broader musings on the limitations of language itself.
This essay, as part of my Understanding Language series, takes you through this journey, starting from the distinction between empathy and sympathy, a topic that seems so important to anthropologists and psychologists. But as you’ll see, we soon venture into the very heart of language and its failure to serve as the robust tool we often assume it to be.
Perhaps we humans are all doing the best we can with the linguistic tools available to us. Or perhaps, as I often suspect, the whole endeavor to use language as a means of understanding the world is a fool’s errand. Either way, I invite you to read on as we explore the many contradictions and limitations of language, and whether or not there’s any hope of transcending them.
Introduction by ChatGPT
The relationship between language and human understanding has been a central concern of philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists for centuries. Language, the very tool we rely on to communicate our thoughts and perceptions, is inherently limited. It is shaped by our biology, our perceptual apparatus, and our cultural contexts. In this essay, we will delve into how language both enables and constrains our ability to comprehend the world, starting with the much-discussed distinction between empathy and sympathy.
As the author points out, even seemingly clear-cut concepts like empathy and sympathy can unravel when examined closely. From there, we will venture deeper into the limitations of language itself—how it fails us, how it shapes our understanding, and how it might even be an artifact of human cognition that holds little objective meaning beyond our own species. We will also consider whether the pursuit of understanding, using such imperfect tools, is a noble quest or a Sisyphean task.
Empathy and Sympathy: A Linguistic Artifact?
The scholarly debate over the distinction between empathy and sympathy is a telling case study in the limitations of language. While empathy is generally described as the capacity to feel what another person is experiencing from their perspective, and sympathy is understood as concern for another's suffering without necessarily sharing in their feelings, these definitions blur on closer inspection.
The problem is that empathy itself is poorly understood at a neurological level, despite the advent of brain imaging studies and psychometric scales. If empathy is nebulous, then how can sympathy, a concept so closely related, be treated as something distinct? The distinction is linguistic at best—a convenient but ultimately flawed way to categorize human emotions.
This is where the real problem lies: language is not a precise tool. It reflects the limitations of human perception and cognition. Scholars have attempted to define and measure these terms, but such efforts often reveal more about the limitations of our understanding than they do about the phenomena in question. In The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, Tomasello (1999) argues that many of our cognitive categories, such as empathy and sympathy, are culturally constructed rather than biologically fixed, which further supports the idea that these distinctions may not be meaningful across different contexts.
The Limits of Language
The issue goes beyond empathy and sympathy. Language, as many scholars contend, is a fundamentally imperfect vehicle for describing the world. It is a tool that helps humans navigate their environment and communicate, but it is constrained by the boundaries of our sensorium—what we can perceive, what we can think, and what we can even imagine.
Consider for a moment the idea of omniscience. If an all-knowing being existed, what language would they use to communicate their knowledge? Would they even need to communicate, or to think? These questions are deliberately absurd, but they underscore the limitations of language and thought. What we call "understanding" is a human-scaled phenomenon, rooted in our limited experience of the world.
An alien anthropologist, for instance, might describe human emotions and thoughts in entirely different terms—terms that may be incomprehensible to us. In The Symbolic Species, Deacon (1997) explores how language and the brain co-evolved, emphasizing that language is deeply tied to human cognition and biology. Deacon’s insights suggest that any alien form of communication would likely be shaped by their own evolutionary path, and they might find our distinctions between emotions like empathy and sympathy irrelevant. In this sense, language may be less a tool for objective understanding and more an artifact of human cognition, shaped by our unique evolutionary path.
Human Understanding: An Imperfect Quest
In the broader philosophical context, the limitations of language call into question the very idea of human understanding. We often assume that if we think something, it must be true, or if someone in authority tells us something, it must reflect reality. Yet so much of what we "understand" is shaped by linguistic interpretation—an interpretation that is inherently fallible.
In his work The Language Myth, Harris (1981) critiques the notion that language is an abstract, neutral system for conveying information. Instead, he emphasizes its context-bound nature and argues that language often misleads us into thinking we can capture the world as it truly is. This aligns with the argument that language shapes our understanding, but also constrains it.
And yet, language is the only tool we have. Despite its flaws, it remains our best means of navigating the world. The pursuit of understanding may indeed be a noble quest, even if it is one that will never reach a final, definitive truth. After all, the process of seeking understanding—of questioning, interpreting, and reinterpreting—might be as important as the answers we find.
Summary
Language is a powerful tool, but it is also deeply flawed. The distinction between empathy and sympathy, while useful in some contexts, may be more of a linguistic artifact than a reflection of objective reality. More broadly, language shapes our understanding of the world, but it also constrains that understanding. As we grapple with complex concepts and emotions, we must acknowledge the limitations of the very medium we use to explore them.
Ultimately, human understanding is an imperfect quest. We do the best we can with the tools available to us, but we must remain aware of the limitations of those tools. Language, for all its usefulness, is a product of human cognition—an emergent property of the mind that reflects our limited sensory and cognitive capacities. Perhaps the best we can hope for is to keep questioning, keep exploring, and remain open to the possibility that our understanding is always incomplete.
References
Evans, V. (2014). The Language Myth: Why Language Is Not an Instinct. Cambridge University Press. https://www.amazon.ca/Language-Myth-Why-Not-Instinct/dp/1107619750
Commentary: Evans challenges the dominant view of language as an innate human trait (e.g., Chomsky’s universal grammar). This book emphasizes the role of culture and social interaction, fitting well into the essay's critique of the arbitrary nature of linguistic distinctions.
Tomasello, M. (1999). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674005822
Commentary: Tomasello’s work is crucial for understanding how language and cognition are shaped by cultural factors. It supports the idea that the categories we use (such as empathy and sympathy) are not biologically fixed but culturally constructed.
Deacon, T. W. (1997). The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain. W.W. Norton & Company. https://www.amazon.com/Symbolic-Species-Co-evolution-Language-Brain/dp/0393317544
Commentary: Deacon’s work on the co-evolution of language and the brain provides a framework for understanding how our linguistic categories are tied to human biology and cognition, reinforcing the essay’s argument about the limitations of language as a tool for comprehension.
Everett, D. (2008). Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle. Pantheon Books. https://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Sleep-There-Are-Snakes/dp/0307386120
Commentary: Everett’s experiences with the Pirahã tribe challenge the idea of linguistic universals and show how language is deeply intertwined with cultural experience. His work underscores the essay’s theme that language reflects human-specific contexts rather than objective reality.
Harris, R. (1981). The Language Myth. Duckworth. https://www.amazon.com/Language-Myth-R-HARRIS/dp/0715616595
Commentary: Harris critiques the idea of language as an abstract system, focusing instead on its contextual and interpretive nature. This aligns with the essay’s assertion that language is not a perfect tool for capturing objective reality.
Clark, A. (1997). Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. MIT Press. https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/3917/Being-TherePutting-Brain-Body-and-World-Together
Commentary: Clark introduces the concept of embodied cognition, arguing that our understanding of the world is shaped by the interaction of our brain, body, and environment. His perspective supports the essay’s claim that language, as a cognitive tool, is constrained by our bodily and perceptual experiences.