The Nexus Between Philosophy of Language, Film, and Literature: A Hermeneutic Approach

Abstract

The work explores the fields of philosophy of language, film, and literature with the aim of establishing the intrinsic nexus between them on one hand, and to establish their existential relevance to humanity and society. Man as an existential, social, and cultural being, and no doubt finds this expression in his use of language and artistic creations. The imperative question is, how is it possible to use language to communicate what is not real and what is real? The work argues that though language somewhat sets the limit or demarcate the boundary between what is real/meaningful and what is not/meaningless according to the view expressed by Wittgenstein and the logical positivists, is that enough to abandon or jettison human artistic works as constituting nothing but mere entertainment? The work submits that consideration of film and literature as ersatz and which sole purpose is amusement is mistaken. Rather, the work advanced the argument that film and literature and every other human artistic works represent existential reflections of man's true self in the “life-world.”