David Peat

Language 89Then, in later life, Wittgenstein realized that language truly has alife of its own. Poets are extremely careful about the way language isused and can spend days choosing the right word. Yet the very powerof such poetry lies in the multiple resonances of words and the waythey evoke a network of images, metaphors, and similes. It is theselanguage games that present such a trap for philosophy, for the play oflanguage creates confusion when philosophers begin to debate suchissues as free will, consciousness, causality, and reality.Language is a living thing. It allows us to play and be creative. It iswell adapted to everything from the persuasive distortions of a politicianor used car salesman to a teenager in love. Language is used formaking puns and jokes, reciting epic poetry, composing a letter of condolence,or singing a folk song. Language is one of our finest tools, yetat the same time, to quote Bohr, we are always suspended in it so thatwe do not know which way is up and which is down. Our Westernsociety is suspended in a language that favors nouns, while theBlackfoot flow along with a language rich in verbal forms. But Westernscience has now entered a new domain where noun-based languagesmay not be appropriate. On the other hand it is unlikely that we cantransform our own spoken language to meet such a challenge. Thuswas Bohr correct in arguing that we have reached a limit to knowingwhen we encounter the quantum world?As this chapter has shown, linguistic certainty is another of thoseillusions of the early twentieth century that we have had to drop.Russell’s “logical atoms” are incapable of coming together to create therichness of our world. We can never be totally unambiguous when wespeak. We cannot pin down the world in words. But then language hasso much more to offer us, and our lives are that much richer whenlanguage is not placed in a straitjacket. Maybe the next Niels Bohr willspeak one of the Algonquian family’s languages!