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JAINISM AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
Dr. Harendra Prasad Verma Reader, Dept. of Philosophy Bhagalpur University (Bihar)
The recent emphasis on the Analysis of Language:
Linguistic analysis is the most dominant trend in the present day philosophy. Philosophers now generally believe that philosophy is nothing but the analysis of language. In course of the philosophical development, the emphasis has gradually shifted from Ontology to Epistemology, and from Epistemology to the Logic of language. The reasons thereof are many fold. First, the Analysts point ont that language is the most potent means of communication. We learn things through language, and at the same time we also express whatever we think, feel and desire through language. Hence for all meaningful communications, linguistic or conceptual clarity is essential. But we find that language is generally prone to be misused and confused. Certain expressions, says Ryle, are "systema tically misleading" and create confusions and generate the demand for queer entities. According to Wittgenstein also, "Most questions and propositions result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language......... It is the merit of Russell's to have shown that the apparent logical form of the proposition need not be the real form."2 Secondly according to the analysts, most of the philosophical puzzlements are due to the misunderstanding of the logic of language. Hence- if the logic of language is clearly understood, the philosophical problems also dissolve automatically. According to Wittgenstein, "philosophical problems arise when language goes on holidays."3 The treatment of the philosophical problems is like the treatment of neurosis. As neurosis dissolves when we understand how the complex has formed, the philosophical puzzlements also disappear when we understand how the concepts have been tangled. Thus the aim of philosophy is to attain the conceptual clarity, and the sign of clarity is the dissolution of the problem altogether, As Wittgenstein observed, "The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists of elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of philosophical propositions, but to make propositions clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are. as it were, opaque or blurred."4
Mahaveer Jayanti Smarika 77
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