We argue that the dream of a ‘perfect language’ – namely, a universal, unambiguous and semantically transparent medium of expression –, whose intriguing story has been told by Umberto Eco (1993), is deeply intertwined with the myth of instant rationality: the idea that a perfect language is one in which all logical relations beco- me immediately visible, so that the language itself “does the thinking for us” (Frege 1884). In the first part of this paper we trace this ver- sion of the dream in the works of Leibniz, Frege, Russell and Witt- genstein. In the second part we re-examine it in the light of more re- cent negative results in logic and theoretical computer science.
Logic and the Myth of the Perfect Language
D'AGOSTINO, Marcello
2010
Abstract
We argue that the dream of a ‘perfect language’ – namely, a universal, unambiguous and semantically transparent medium of expression –, whose intriguing story has been told by Umberto Eco (1993), is deeply intertwined with the myth of instant rationality: the idea that a perfect language is one in which all logical relations beco- me immediately visible, so that the language itself “does the thinking for us” (Frege 1884). In the first part of this paper we trace this ver- sion of the dream in the works of Leibniz, Frege, Russell and Witt- genstein. In the second part we re-examine it in the light of more re- cent negative results in logic and theoretical computer science.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
