Language and the Ineffable: A Developmental Perspective and its Applications

One's conception of language is central in fields such as linguistics, but less obviously so in fields studying matters other than language. In Language and the Ineffable Louis S. Berger demonstrates the flaws of the received view of language and the difficulties they raise in multiple disciplines. This breakthrough study sees past failures as inevitable, since reformers retained key detrimental features of the received view. Berger undertakes a new reform, grounded in an unconventional model of individual human development. A central radical and generative feature is the premise that the neonate's world is holistic, boundary-less, unimaginable, impossible to describe-in other words, ineffable-completely distinct from what Berger calls "adultocentrism." The study is a wholly original approach to epistemology, separate from the traditional interpretations offered by skepticism, idealism, and realism. The work rejects both the independence of the world and the possibility of true judgment-a startling shift in the traditional responses to the standard schema. Language and the Ineffable evolves a unique conception of language that challenges and unsettles sacrosanct beliefs, not only about language, but other disciplines as well. Berger demonstrates the framework's potential for elucidating a wide range of problems in such diverse fields as philosophy, logic, psychiatry, general-experimental psychology, psychotherapy, and arithmetic. The reconceptualization marks a revolutionary turn in language studies that reaches across academic boundaries.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Chapter One. Background and Rationale Chapter 3 Chapter Two. The Received View of Language Chapter 4 Chapter Three. Varieties of Ineffability Chapter 5 Chapter Four. Ontogenesis, Nonduality, First Language Acquisition Chapter 6 Chapter Five. What Language Is and Does: The Tier 1 Framework Chapter 7 Chapter Six. Application 1: Psychiatry, General-Experimental Psychology, Psychotherapy Chapter 8 Chapter Seven. Application 2: Logic, Mathematics Chapter 9 Postlude

About the Author :
Louis S. Berger is a psychologist with a background in music and physics, and the author ofAverting Global Extinction: Our Irrational Society as Therapy Patient. He lives in Forsyth, Georgia.

Review :
Louis Berger has written a book that will be of interest to philosophers and mathematicians. Berger is not a professional philosopher, but his insights about language and the logical and semantic paradoxes (see Ch. 7) are impressive. His interests are in the philosophy of language. He develops a view that he calls 'adultocentrism,' which is the highly structured and sophisticated language that adults speak, and that he contrasts with the linguistic neonatal state of the infant looked at developmentally. He cites evidence that infants have a language, but that from the perspective of the adult speaker it is incomprehensible and hence ineffable. This book is a new perspective on language and well worth reading. Louis Berger is an independent thinker who adroitly attacks the standard conception of language and language learning. His skepticism of the standard conception is well-taken, and the range of his learning is impressive in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics. He is rightly skeptical about talking about the ineffable process of language acquisition. Drawing upon at least three decades of experience as a clinical psychologist and philosophical metaphysician, Louis Berger has drawn together his provocative conception of Tier 1 thinking and cast it in the context of mathematics, logic, human development, and mental health care. Written in a concise and conversational style, Berger has written his defining work for the intellectually curious and courageous.