Two Approaches to Philosophically Analyzing Language

Abstract

According to some philosophers we can distinguish two trends in dealing with (especially natural) language. One of them is older and uses explications that simplify the richness of the language, so that the result of its efforts is an artificial image of language not corresponding to its real shape. The more recent trend tries to capture all the richness of the language together with all its irregularities and is represented mainly by Quine’s and later Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The older trend (I call it $\textit{analytic group}$, $\textbf{AG}$, here) is sometimes criticized as being somehow obsolete while the more recent trend (called here $\textit{Q-W group}$, $\textbf{Q-W}$, here) is then evaluated as more promising (more ‘progressive’). I try to show that $\textbf{AG}$ is incomparable with $\textbf{Q-W}$ because both try to answer distinct questions, solve distinct problems. (A comparison could be realized on the higher level of evaluating the choice of problems itself, which is another topic.)