Abstract
The creativity of language Chomsky puts so much importance on must be questioned because the same creativity has produced lethal weapons such as atomic bombs. Modern science developed by the power of language has certainly produced many beneficial things, but we should not overlook its destructive side. Besides, language capable of inventing a new reality leads us to believe in it blindly. Let us remember philosophers such as Wittgenstein or Nagarjuna who warned us not to believe in the construct called “reality” made up by language power.Now, is it better and safer then to use a metaphorical language that composes poetry than a conceptual one that composes science and mathematics? Not necessarily, for so long as metaphors evoke a sense of reality in us, it can be as dangerous as the conceptual one. The problem today is that the conceptual and logical language that supports science and technology is predominant over the metaphorical and poetical one. Even if Rousseau, Adorno and Horkheimer alarmed us of the danger, our history has advanced ignoring their alarms. Science and technology are making progress day by day, and no one is capable of checking their progress because no one sees what is really happening in there.The wall between the “Two Cultures” is still there, but let us not forget the efforts of poetic scientists and scientific poets such as Kenji Miyazawa or Claude Lévi-Strauss, who try to diminish the gap. They surely help us to find a way out of the danger.
Recommended Citation
Oshima, Hitoshi.
"Language, Science and Literature."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
24.5
(2022):
<https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.3290>
This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field.
The above text, published by Purdue University Press ©Purdue University, has been downloaded 212 times as of 10/10/24.