ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on language and world order. It concerns the role of symbolisms in creating the conditions for man’s social life, the maintaining of cultural traditions over the generations, and the promotion of intellectual progress in the future, such as it may be, that lies ahead for mankind. The chapter explains one of the important developments in contemporary linguistics, a discovery made by scholars in philosophy and anthropology. The one social scientist in this field to whom most credit is assigned is Benjamin Lee Whorf, whose generalization is now a part of what is termed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. What made Logical Positivism so attractive, until its recent demise, was its superficially convincing analysis of the functions of language, along with the assignment of roles according to these functions (uses). Obviously much remains to be done, if people are to move toward the “coming world civilization” of a Planetary Democracy.
