The positive outcome of philosophyDietzgen, Joseph
Philosophy
The positive outcome of philosophy
Dietzgen, Joseph
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Philosophy
On the basis of this universal unity, from which it becomes apparent
that high and low, dry and fluid, in short the whole universe is made of
the same substance, any fantastic thinker can prove that human and
animal language is one, for otherwise one could not refer to both of
them as language. He may then justly contend that speech, producing a
sound, is a noise, that speech and noise are one. Speech is sound and
sound speaks. In this way language would have no beginning and no end.
In the last analysis it would be one with all things, and all things
would be one with it. In this way the whole universe would become an
inexplicable, incomprehensible, inexpressible mixture of speech.
And yet it is an old story that man's insight grows the more he
magnifies a thing. The more excessively we exaggerate a thing, the
plainer become its boundaries. Language indeed requires one single name
for _All_, but it also requires an infinite number of names in order to
specify the parts of _All_. Inasmuch as language claims to be only a
part of existence, this part has to be bounded, and you should in this
connection remember the unlimited freedom of man in drawing such
boundaries. Words are not merely empty words, but names of cosmic parts,
of cosmic rings of undulation. Language, or rather the mind connected
with language, wishes to bound the infinite by the help of language. The
instinctive popular use of language does this in a haphazard way.
Conscious science proceeds in an exact manner. Just as it has determined
on the field of temperature what should be called hot and what warm, so
it is at liberty on the field of sounds to determine where the name of
language begins or ceases. The end of the discussion of language is
therefore this: That which has already been done to horse power has not
yet been done to the concept of language; it has been somewhat fixed by
common usage, but only insufficiently. And so the moral of this tale is
that the things of this world, even mind and language, are connected and
intermingling undulations of the same stream, which has neither
beginning nor end.
Let me say it once more clearly and without circumlocution: The logic
which I teach and the thought which is its object are parts of the
world, of the infinite, and every part being a piece of the infinite is
likewise infinite. Every part partakes of the nature of the infinite.
Hence you must not expect that I should exhaust my infinite subject. I
confine myself to the logical chapter of "the One and the Many." I
simply wish to make it plain that without any contradiction the whole
multiplicity of existence is of the same nature, and that this oneness
of nature subdivides into manifold forms. The world is interconnected
and this interconnection is subdivided into departments. It adds to the
general enlightenment of the human brain to recognize this in regard to
language, to mind, to all parts of the universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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