THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE, EPISTEMOLOGY AND SCIENCE: HOW TO PRESERVE OUR SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE?
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Abstract
Human behaviour has a direct correlation with its mental stimulator(s). Every mental construct is a network of concepts which are in turn linguistic entities. Therefore, there is a necessary correlation between human conduct and human language. The intensity of this correlation may vary from lesser degrees in actions that are not knowledgebound and thus result more from our biological nature to greater degrees in actions that depend on mental planning or conception. This article examines one human action that is directly bound with knowledge: scientific activities. It concentrates on two major issues: 1. the nature of language; 2. the nature of science and scientific activities. Once the two are clarified, the correlation between sciences and language becomes transparent. The conclusion concentrates on the idea that science depend on concepts that are developed in human language and then turned into technical terms in scientific inquiry. This means the less a language is developed, the less it will support a scientific inquiry. Vice versa, the less progressive the scientific inquiry, the less developed the language. Thus, to preserve their languages, Muslims need to pay more attention to science without putting emphasis as to which is more important than the other. Similarly, to progress scientifically, they need to develop their languages further.
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