Journal of Philosophy and Theology

Word as a Tool for World Creation at the Turn of Pre-theoretical to Theoretical Thinking
Nijol Aukštuolyte

Abstract
The paper analyzes the awareness of the power of language in mythical culture relating pre-theoretical to theoretical thinking. Emphasis on the power of word in a myth and its identification with the essence of thing give prominence to the usage of names. The word is understood as the tool of creation and the element giving birth to the world and its order. Language for the ancient man provides both the cognitive basis and the examples of practical behavior. This paper makes the assumption that the inherent belief of the pre-theoretical thinking in the exclusive power of language to represent things determined the insight into the language as the tool for revealing the essence of world in theoretical thinking. The creative power of language became the starting point for the philosophical analysis of the relation between things and names. Philosophical thought while transforming the belief inherent to pre-theoretical thinking in exceptional powers of language into the theoretical analysis of the suitability of language for knowing, raised the problem of the relationship between the world of things and the world of language which is analyzed in philosophical theories from Plato to Wittgenstein, Popper or Feyerabend.

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