How to Define an Idea. All I know is What I have Concepts for.
In this article, we will use the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure¹, as a medium for exploring the notion of the idea as a concept.
If you’d like to start from the beginning of this series, please read the introduction.
“Psychologically our thought — apart from its expression in words — is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. Without language, a thought is a vague uncharted nebula. There are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language².”
Saussure, a linguistic theorist, was interested in language, (and anything we can call a semantic system), as a structure which makes meaning possible.
We use language to define and give meaning to our ideas and perceptions, even within our imagination. When our minds make sense of what we conceive or perceive, it’s parameters of definition are bound by our concepts. If the brain has no idea that maps adequately to experience, the knowledge or perception will be incoherent or inconsistent.
Saussure believed that if we had no language, our thoughts could only be a shapeless and distinct mass and that language gives us the very structure by which we think.
“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have…
