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The Paradox Of Imprecision In Language, Henry R. Bauer
The Paradox Of Imprecision In Language, Henry R. Bauer
Critical Reflections
The Paradox of Imprecision in Language
Abstract
This paper investigates philosophical questions bearing on the relationship between language and mind, through an analysis of the phenomenon of “efficient imprecision” in language. It is argued that language users’ ability to intuitively connect allegedly imprecise linguistic expressions with definite conceptual information presents a paradox that might lead philosophers, linguists and cognitive scientists alike to reconsider the relationship between the computational machinery of human language and its function as the vehicle of conscious thought.
Like the puzzle about the identity relation which Gottlob Frege presents in the seminal Sense and Reference (1892), which …