Words as tools and the problem of abstract words meanings

Words as Tools and the Problem of Abstract Word Meanings Anna M. Borghi (annamaria.borghi@unibo.it) Department of Psychology, Viale Berti Pichat 5 40127 Bologna, Italy Felice Cimatti (felice.cimatti@tin.it) Department of Philosophy, Cubo 18C, Ponte Pietro Bucci 87030 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy Abstract This paper proposes an extension of existing embodied views of cognition in order to account for the linguistic experience and its complexity. We claim that embodied views should be extended in order to consider not only language grounding but the social and normative aspects of language as well. Motor resonance mechanisms based on mirror neurons are a necessary but not sufficient component of this. We will argue that words cannot be conceived of as mere signals of something but also as tools that allows us to operate in the world. On this basis, we formulate a theoretical proposal that addresses one of the critical problems embodied views face: the problem of the so called “abstract concepts”. Our proposal extends embodied views assuming two simultaneous cognitive sources for word meanings; an individual one, the embodied individual experience, and a socially embodied one. While for words having a concrete referent labels are “attached” to concepts formed on the basis of sensorimotor individual experience, the same situation does not hold in the case of meanings of abstract words. In the latter case the cognitive source is still embodied, but primarily in the use of the social word/tool. Thus abstract words represent a means to collect a variety of sparse bodily and situational experiences. Keywords: concepts; meanings; sensorimotor grounding; social grounding; language and society. Introduction We are accustomed to consider words and sentences as a medium through which we indirectly refer to objects and actions in the world. The experience of these things and actions are what we are interested in during the use of words and sentences. Here we claim that words are not mere signals of something. On the contrary, we propose that words and sentences must be intended as things/tools of direct experience; in the use of words and sentences a kind of experience of its own is carried out (Austin, 1962). In particular, following Wittgenstein, we conceive the words of a language as a set of tools; each word acts as a specific tool that allows the user to specify a kind of activity: «Think of the tools in a tool-box: there might be a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws. − The functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects. (And in both cases there are similarities). Of course, what confuses us is the uniform appearance of words when we hear them spoken or when we meet them in script and print. Words in their application are not presented quite so clearly. Especially from a philosophical perspective» (Philosophical Investigations, I, § 11; perhaps we could critically say that the same problem is presented to us especially in the study of psychology or neurology of language). We assume that all forms of human cognition are based on bodily experiences; this implies that we also consider the so called “abstract” forms of cognition as forms of bodily experience. The point we want to establish is that such “abstract” forms of cognition are mediated by the words of natural languages. We argue that an “abstract” form of cognition is only possible through the mediation of a specific modal entity, that is, the sound or the gesture that expresses a word. But this is not the whole story. Namely, words are embodied not only because we utter them and accompany them with gestures, but also because they are real extensions of our body, they are tools that allow us to act and operate in a social context (Clark, 2006a, 2006b; Mirolli & Parisi, in press). We think that such an assumption can help us to solve at least one of the classical problems that afflict every embodied theory of language, namely the problem posed by the meaning of so called abstract words, such as freedom, or God. In particular, we are interested in showing that a comprehensive bodily theory of human cognition has to simultaneously take into account the following elements: 1. bodily individual sensorimotor experiences; 2. the language we communicate in while growing up in a human community; 3. the precise uses of our natural language and how this impacts on our cognitive activities and thus in everyday life. Limits of embodied cognition views on word meanings According to embodied theories of language and the simulation view, in order to understand and correctly use the word “bicycle” one needs to recruit the same sensorimotor system involved while experiencing a bicycle. Language comprehension entails a mental simulation of the situation described through language; thus words guide action, activating online “simulations” that help us to interact with objects and entities in the environment (Gallese, 2007; Zwaan, 2004). The neural substrate for this idea of simulation resides in the recent neurophysiological discovery, in the F5 area of the premotor cortex of monkeys and in humans, of two kinds of visuomotor neurons: canonical and mirror neurons (for a review see Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). Many studies support a link between the mirror neuron system and language processing. Despite the impressive amount of evidence collected in the last years (for reviews see Barsalou, 2008; Borghi, 2005; Fischer & Zwaan, 2008; Martin, 2007; Pulvermuller, 2005),