In Which The WSJ Discovers The Sapir-Whorf Thesis
July 27th, 2010 by SocProf and tagged Culture, Media
“Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? Do they merely express thoughts, or do the structures in languages (without our knowledge or consent) shape the very thoughts we wish to express?”
And no Wittgenstein mentioned either, or all the work done by a lot of people on this very topic (linguists, analytical philosophers, etc.). Hence this:
“These questions touch on all the major controversies in the study of mind, with important implications for politics, law and religion. Yet very little empirical work had been done on these questions until recently. The idea that language might shape thought was for a long time considered untestable at best and more often simply crazy and wrong. Now, a flurry of new cognitive science research is showing that in fact, language does profoundly influence how we see the world.”
Note to self: when the media suddenly “discovers” something that social sciences have researched for decades, it automatically annihilates ANY and all research done prior to said discovery.
Posted in Culture, Media | 3 Comments »
July 29th, 2010 at 1:22 am
This is what I mean by “weakness” of the social sciences …
July 29th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
It is not surprising that they used the concept when it was useful. They obviously would not give the kudos to the social sciences because they are anti-intellectual business people.
July 30th, 2010 at 9:35 am
Exactly, that’s what pi**es me off every time.