“Through symbol, we are able to make the leap from a particular thing or situation requiring a response and into the realm of universals.”
“Language is an irreducible triad connecting us to real objects and allowing us to make a conceptual leap to the whole. I say that it is irreducible because the clues to how we communicate seem to be irretrievably hidden in pre-linguistic clues. You either communicate or you don’t. Even an infant child, although physically inferior to pretty much every other creature at the same age of development, seems to be capable of communication. Any mother will tell you so. The ability to communicate reveals the intellect that is the distinguishing mark of our species. We are rational animals.”
“We are hooked by language, enchanted by the innocence required by speech, to venture a communication in this vast, veiled world of sign and symbol. I say innocent because surely we are naive to expose ourselves to others through the act of communication. I don’t mean merely misunderstandings of intent but, more specifically, the fundamentally incomplete nature of language itself”
“Language is an interpretation of the universe, a way of making sense. There are always other interpretations but, although it is conjectural, it is not what we would call subjective. Rather, we might say that it is both accurately descriptive and incomplete at the same time. Michael Polanyi writes in Personal Knowledge, “Our choice of language is a matter of truth or error, of right or wrong–of life or death.” We are not nominalists and language is not a game. Babbling babes and poets alike are engaged in serious business.”
“Language is but straw. This ought to make us happy, because it reveals that language is analogical. If all we wanted was to receive a banana when we push the correct button marked “banana” in the lab experiment, then our communication would be perfectly adequate, for the banana would swiftly be ours. Human communication is much more! It is truly a miracle that binds earth to heaven, a word that participates in the eternal Word who speaks worlds into being, a part that somehow brings with it the whole.”
“Human language has pried open a crack in the fabric of the universe. We peer through and glimpse our future. Maddeningly, the future remains just that, far ahead out of reach in the present moment.”