Referencialidade e pragmatismo: uma proposta de aproximação entre Agostinho e Wittgenstein a partir do problema filosófico da significação.

Abstract

Philosophy of Language is the branch that essentially addresses four fundamental questions: the nature of meaning, the use of language, the understanding of language and the relationship of language to reality. Therefore, it is the branch of philosophy that, preferably, studies the essence and nature of linguistic phenomena. Language is configured as a distinctive feature between human beings and other beings that exist in the world; this because of the imago Dei – according to Augustine; and by referentiality and, later, pragmatism in Wittgenstein. Thus, the problem of this research was driven by the dynamic relationship between Referentiality and Pragmatism from the Augustinian and Wittgensteinian conceptions of language, since this relationship encompasses, from a philosophical point of view, the nature of linguistic meaning, the reference, the use of language, its structure and understanding, that is, the linguistic aspects of thought and experience. Therefore, based on the assumption that the spheres of human activity are closely linked to the use of language, in search of such a scope and within a specificity in the linguistic field, this work intends to carry out a comparative study between the theoretical philosophy of Augustine, especially, in his works Confessiones and De magistro, and the philosophy developed by Wittgenstein presented in the works Tractatus logico-philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations. Thus, in order to understand this comparative relationship between the Theory of Language in Augustine and Wittgenstein, this work will dialogue with philosophical currents of Internalist and Externalist language, Psychogenetic Theories, Pragmatism and German Hermeneutics, Linguistics and Psychology of Language and Discourse Analysis.