WORDS AS TOOLS
McGary, Keith
Words as Tools LANGUAGE IN- THOUGHT AND ACTION, by S. I. Hayakawa. Harcourt, Brace. 307 pp. $2.75. Reviewed by Keith McGary MODERN semanticists seem to believe that it is they who have...
...In the first part, "The Functions of Language," Hayakawa states the theory which underlies his thinking about language...
...What of Socrates...
...A woodchopper who breaks an ax handle does not throw his ax away with the comment, "To hell with axes...
...If we make this mistake, we run the risk of generalizing what is really unique...
...He has completely reworked his ideas in Language in Thought and Action...
...but surely he cannot claim that they are independent...
...If it were the case that words were thus independent of things, it would be a great mystery as to how it is possible to use the words "mad dog" and have people avoid the real thing —or what the semanticists would call the "extensional mad dog...
...He, and problably others before him, concerned himself in a systematic manner with the meanings of words in common use...
...Instead, he fixes up the handle...
...Reviewed by Keith McGary MODERN semanticists seem to believe that it is they who have inaugurated the serious study of language...
...It may be that Hayakawa means to say that words and things are not identical...
...Those and other works would throw much light on the theories used by Hayakawa so as to strengthen what otherwise remains an unsatisfactory treatment of crucially important problems in modern culture...
...he is identifying "reality" with that map which he, and a lot of other people, have commonly accepted as the most useful...
...Today, although they rail at Aristotle, the semanticists likewise make language the central fact of human experience...
...Another flaw is revealed by Hay-akawa's use of the term reality to cover hidden value judgments...
...If, for instance, we say that "cows are herbivorous," we will have a highly useful abstraction whereas to say that "cows chase children" is to use an abstraction wKich is less useful than harmful...
...It is a pity that a book which is so much at home in modern culture and which addresses itself to genuinely live problems of modern men should do so with such a weak foundation...
...The problem of abstractions, however, would be more fruitfully handled if Hayakawa had thought of abstractions as tools which are made by thinking creatures to handle concrete situations...
...Indeed, to be safe we should think about "facts" instead of about abstractions...
...As was the case with his earlier book (Language in Action), this one proves to be stimulating and suggestive while exhibiting serious theoretical limitations...
...superstitious," "unreal-tistic," guilty of making "meaningless noises," "acting like a fool...
...Hayakawa could do more justice to his ideas if he were to look at such theoretical studies as John Dewey's logic, George Herbert Mead's theories of language and self, and M. C. Otto's theories of creative bargaining...
...In the second section, "Language and Thought," applications of his theory are made to our actual uses of language...
...Reality is attributed to the extensional world to which we should adjust our pictures or maps...
...And if they do not seek the Truth in Aristotle's sense, they do seek personal and social health by proper use of language...
...Like him, we cannot discard abstractions merely because we happen to run into a bad lot...
...If we want to get along in the society in which we live, we must use certain parts of our experience and exclude or ignore others...
...Tools are discarded when it is apparent they do not work...
...Aristotle, in codifying Greek science, took language and its analysis to be the path to Truth...
...The language used by Hayakawa gives the impression that abstractions are out there in events and we just pick them out...
...We are, therefore, warned to recognize that cow1 is not cow2...
...S. I. Hayakawa has been a persistent popularizer of the present vogue in language analysis...
...Abstractions are tools, very necessary tools, for handling our experience...
...An abstraction is, according to Hayakawa, extracted out of an external situation...
...Abstractions are the bogey men of the semanticists because, so they allege, abstractions are likely to make readers and listeners think they know "all" about the objects referred to in an abstraction...
...A person who builds maps which are not adjusted to this world is, according to Hayakawa, "infantile...
...By so doing, he would'have been able to offer a more useful warning, namely, that it is not abstractions as such which are confusing, but abstractions which are not workable, not adqeuate for their purpose...
...One handy new feature is his "advice" on how to apply the principles of semantics in everyday experiences...
...One oft-repeated admonition to the reader is that he remember that words are independent of things...
...primitive...
...Words are important, and it is well to have their importance stressed from time to time, but other things are important as well...
...But by making these allegations, Hayakawa is hiding his own value judgments...
...Some sort of relation has to be established between words and things if words, are to be used to control our actions in relation to tilings...
Vol. 14 • January 1950 • No. 1
