Are Word and Concept the Same? Natural Language and Philosophical Language
“When I say ousia or on for Being, it's not simply a conventional sign associated with a concept; you cannot dissociate a concept from a language, from what we call a natural language.” — Jacques Derrida , Talking Liberties , interview with Alan Montefiore 1. The Problem of Familiar Words When we read philosophy, we encounter words such as word , term , meaning , concept , language , and sign , and we usually have little difficulty understanding them in ordinary contexts. We know what a word is, what it means for something to have a meaning , and what it is to call something a concept . The difficulty begins when these familiar terms become part of a philosophical argument, where distinctions that seem obvious in ordinary contexts may acquire a more precise or entirely different role. This becomes particularly clear with the word concept . When philosophers speak of a concept , are they referring to something in thought, something expressed by language, an abstract enti...