Perception, Knowledge, and Natural Language

Abstract

In this paper, we would like to argue in support of the productiveness of epistemological investigations at the interface of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language and the analysis of perception. We begin with a short overview the history of convergence of these two areas of research. Leibniz is the center of this historical discussion. We identify the general problems that arise when language meets perception and discuss some recent research in the semantics of pictures. We arrive at the following conclusions. First, the reference of a singular term and the perception of its denotation involve the same relation between the conceptual and what is immediately given in perception. The specifics of perception make up a part of a singular term’s pragmatics determining the conditions of a semantic interpretation. Secondly, phenomena with minimal conceptual content arise whenever the update of the conceptual content of linguistic expressions (or the update of their theoretical component) is faster than the update of the sensory material of perception. In the realm of language, these phenomena are related to the appearance of singular terms that become the result of acts of naming singular objects. The semantic and the pragmatic analysis of language identifies the relevant phenomena by revealing the universal formal structures and mechanism within language and its use. The result is an isolation of sensory data from conceptual schemes. Their place is taken by the empirical conditions of perception.