I was taking a Dance History class the other day and my professor made a comment stating: Philosophers believe that if one does not possess a language to express their thoughts, they have none. Is this true? If so, how does one express the phenomenons of people with disabilities (such as being deaf) or even one of the greatest minds in the world: Helen Keller? If one does not have a language to verbally express emotion, why are other non-verbal forms of communication (especially dance) not justified in the eyes of the philosopher?

Can it be true, as I've heard, that most philosophers -- or at least philosophers of the Anglo-American School -- assume that language is required for conscious thought? Or is that just a radical minority?

Can you define 'own' without using another word for it, (belong, possess, etc.?) (And I mean 'own' as in possess, not in 'I can do it on my own.') 'Cause I know everyone sort of knows what it means and entails and whatever. But, what does it really mean to 'own' something? And how can you even 'own' something? (I unserstand it's an abstract idea.)

OK. What I have to ask is a little strange, but I have been looking for studies based on language being converted to mathematics, or another way of putting it is a model of language which is strictly math based. The reason I am asking is because I have found a lot on the subject of logic and math or logic and language but nothing on math modeling language specifically, thank you for you time. Jeremy K.

What is understanding? How do we know when something is really understood? If I get up in front of 200 people and read a speech written by a great nuclear physicist flawlessly, yet without knowing what it is I'm talking about, have I understood what I'm reading?

Do both the following phrases express a proposition? (1) "Jill is ill." (2) "Jill's being ill." What about these same phrases as part of the following sentences? (3) "I noticed that Jill is ill." (4) "I noticed Jill's being ill." Thanks, Velho

Hi there. I have a question about Searle's Chinese room argument. In it he seems to argue that purely syntactic programs are not sufficient for semantic content. From a biological perspective, I was wondering what if the program (genetic material) used the symbols themselves (proteins) to build a machine (a brain) that was capable of understanding meaning? What effect, if any, would this have on Searle's argument? I don't have any training in philosophy, so if you could pitch your answer with that in mind that would be great. Thanks, Tim

If I say that all faces are beautiful, the word "beautiful" is meaningless, because, as far as I can see, it only has meaning if something can be "ugly". Now what if I say that all music is perfect, does that make sense? I think not, but it's not as obvious why not. What if I say that all days are cold, does that make sense? It might, if there was some kind of independent standard of coldness, which all days complied with. I'm looking for some kind of rule which tells me what kind of sentences of the form all X is Y are meaningless and what kind of sentences are not. Is there a rule? Thank you.

This seem like an odd question and perhaps misplaced on this site but I am interested none the less. I was thinking about the definition of a car. You see, I've brought this up in conversation before and people are usually arrogantly dismissive of it, and say something like “it has 4 wheels and an engine!”; then I inform them that they've just described cars, forklifts, tractors, some planes etc... Then they realize that any true definition would require much more eloquence. But this is where I am stuck, as any definition I can think of does not omit other non-car vehicles or does not include the myriad of car forms. The fact that what is a car is obvious to the observer is testimony to the fact that there is a working definition of it, and if we fail to find one then, to me at least, it suggests that there is some uniquely car trait that we have yet to quantify. I suppose the broader question this raises is are definitions meaningful anyway?

Natural language statements have quantifiers such as, “most”, “many”, “few”, and “only”. How could ordinary first-order predicate logic with identity (hereafter, FOPL) treat statements containing these vague quantifiers? It seems that FOPL, with only the existential and universal quantifiers at its disposal, is insufficient. I read somewhere that ‘restricted quantification’ notation can ameliorate such problems. Is this true, or are there difficulties with the restricted quantification treatment of vague quantifiers? What are some of the inference rules for restricted quantification notation? For example, in FOPL you have the existential instantiation and universal instantiation inference rules. Are there analogue inference rules for the quantifiers, "many", “most” and “few”? Can you recommend any books or articles that outline, critique or defend restricted quantification? I also read that there are issues with FOPL regarding symbolizing adverbs and events from natural language. Is this true...