https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n32.04

Juan Felipe Guevara Aristizábal
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9835-5437
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM
juanfgapro@gmail.com

Abstract:

The relations that we establish with animals through science are conditioned by several conceptual assumptions limiting the development of significant exchanges in language. Thus, language evolution, whether a result of genes or learning and culture, talks about language as a faculty rather than exploring its concrete and idiosyncratic uses. Through Ludwig Wittgenstein’s late philosophy, specially his formulations of language games and forms of life, I intend to argument that characterizing language as a faculty reduces the reach of the relations that can be established with other species in language. A broader notion of language should favor the acknowledgment of the intertwining developed between humans and animals. Wittgenstein’s thinking thus becomes an opportunity to pave the way for encounters on the edges of human forms of language without abandoning them.

Keywords: language evolution, games of language, forms of life, animal language.