Ontology and language: truth and meaning on the threshold of the two cultures

Abstract

This article proposes an exploration of the implications between language and ontology in the light of two different traditions. On the one hand, the scope of the scientific statement and the relationships between meaning and truth: knowledge as the activity of describing a world that is made up of particular facts; on the other, the historical consideration whose objective is to understand a multiformed reality, where language does not only enunciate facts, but builds a meaning of the world in which human life finds the significant elements of its concrete reality. To put these two sites in perspective, it is assumed that in their development, philosophy and science were interconnected. However, as knowledge expanded, field differentiation became more and more necessary. But that strict parceling must be left behind; today a new critical reflection is required that goes beyond the dichotomy of Natural Sciences and Human or Spirit Sciences. At present, this schematism is the manifestation of an illusory understanding of nature as if it were an area of reality alien to man, and as if human beings were a ‘subject’ disconnected from the natural order. This classification evidences a rupture between nature and society, which obstructs the possibilities of an ontological gaze absent from prejudices. 21st century humanism must overcome such disjunction, as science is an essential activity for human beings to be present in multiple spheres of culture, from health services to food production, communications, recreation, politics, economics, education, etcetera. And, reciprocally, philosophical thought has provided a perspective of totality that allows to notice that the knowledge, in any of its branches, participates in the same objective, scope and value. Reflection on language can open up to understanding the differences and closeness of a shared reality.