In everyday life we find nothing mysterious in the fact of the existence of Language; but although it is true that there is nothing mysterious about it, it seems strange that philosophers have not paid a little more attention to it and have not (as it is the philosopher’s business to do) wondered a little more at this apparently simple phenomenon which we all take for granted as part of our life like walking, eating or sleeping, but which hardly ever has been properly understood. The whole history of philosophy might have taken a very different course if the minds of the great thinkers had been mor deeply impressed by the remarkable fact that there is such a thing as language.
2. Expression of one fact by another.
Is it not astonishing that by hearing certain sounds issuing from the mouth of a person, or by looking at a few black marks on a piece of paper I can become aware of the fact that a volcano on a distant island has had an eruption, or that Mr So-and-so has been elected president of the republic of So-and-so? The marks on the piece of paper and the eruption of the volcano are two entirely distinct and different facts, there is apparently no similarity between them, and yet knowledge of the one conveys to me knowledge of the other. How is this possible? What peculiar relation is there between the two?
We say that one fact (the arrangement of little black marks) expresses the other (the eruption of the volcano), so the particular relation between them is called Expression. In order to understand language we must investigate the nature of Expression. How can certain facts “speak of” other facts? That is our problem.
It is not a difficult problem, I think; but even the simplest question deserves to be taken seriously, and it seems that most philosophers have thought it a little too easy, have given the answer rashly and thereby failed to gain an insight which, as I hope to show, might have prevented most of the misery of traditional philosophy.
