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LANGUAGE AS A VALUES‐REALIZING ACTIVITY: CARING, ACTING, AND PERCEIVING
Author(s) -
Hodges Bert H.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/zygo.12196
Subject(s) - dialogical self , action (physics) , embodied cognition , pragmatics , psychology , value (mathematics) , perception , negotiation , obligate , natural (archaeology) , semantics (computer science) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , epistemology , linguistics , sociology , computer science , ecology , philosophy , social science , physics , history , archaeology , quantum mechanics , machine learning , biology , programming language , neuroscience
A problem for natural scientific accounts, psychology in particular, is the existence of value. An ecological account of values is reviewed and illustrated in three domains of research: carrying differing loads; negotiating social dilemmas involving agreement and disagreement; and timing the exposure of various visual presentations. Then it is applied in greater depth to the nature of language. As described and illustrated, values are ontological relationships that are neither subjective nor objective, but which constrain and obligate all significant animate activity physically, socially, and morally. As an embodied social activity, conversational dialogue is characterized in terms of values, pragmatics, and presence rather than in terms of syntactic and semantic rules. In particular the nature of dialogical arrays is explored, and the hypothesis that language is an action system, a perceptual system, and a caring system is explored. Language expands horizons and makes it possible for humans to realize their calling as culture makers and caretakers.