The Phenomenon of Language

Abstract

In an article entitled “The Ideality of Verbal Expressions”¹ Dorion Cairns has shown that there are “cultural” objects such as the words of a language which are neither “real individuals” nor “ideal universals,” but rather “ideal individuals” sharing with real things individuation in time and the vicissitudes of change, and with changeless universals the character of being ideal, not real. Distinct both from the sounds or visual signs which embody them and from the sense or meaning which they express, words are historical individuals of a distinct type, which come to be, develop or change, and — in many cases — pass away playing all the while an important role in the lives and fortunes of men. But unlike the many artificial implements and edifices of a civilization they are wholly lacking in physical reality and are never exhumed as archeological remains. Other instances of “cultural” objects combining ideality and change are such things as folklore and dances, songs and ballads, religions and literatures, science and knowledge, and a host of similar entities all of which go to make up a culture. Like words they are all historical yet ideal individuals.