This thought just struck me while thinking about how scientists always say that concepts can only be expressed in the language of the field. To me, I see this as a significant problem with science. It is the languages that science uses that limit it.
To start off, let me mention some thoughts I've been having about languages. A universal philosophical principle is that any proposition can be expressed in any other language which comes from the same source, in this case, the human brain. Any proposition spoken in one human language can be expressed in any other, though not necessarily in an identical manner. I didn't like this idea very much since I know there are things that are said in certain languages which don't translate very well. I finally came to the realization that this comes not from the basic thoughts, the propositions, but how a language manipulates them. Also, and more importantly, was the realization that languages often do not contain the same propositions for the same uses. For example, the translation of the welsh term for the english statement "being fearful" is "to have fear upon you". They're different propositions which are similar enough that in different languages they describe the same state. Both of these points are important in what follows.
A very common aspect of scientific thought is that scientific, particularly mathematical, concepts cannot be expressed except in mathematics or the language of the field. The thought that I had was this: the language used to describe a phenomenon limits the understanding of that phenomenon. There's a common expression in America, that people should "think outside the box". Frequently this is applied to science, to come up with alternative explanations and theories. However, it is the language that is the most important box. While scientists stay within the framework of a particular language, they may be able to understand a phenomenon in a direct sense, but they are limited to only the view offered by that language. It is true that the language they use may be able to express other propositions which are not obvious, but combined with the scientific drive towards simplicity (which, unless carefully done, can lead to fallacies of reasoning, a whole different discussion), creates an environment in which these alternate propositions cannot be expressed.
What is needed is other languages to describe a phenomenon. English Can express fear as "there is fear on me" but it is clumsy. However, Welsh has no problem with that particular setup. And it lends to different explanations which have an equal strength of explanatory power. But what happens is that the explanations, because they are different, have different aspects which do not show up in the English version. In scientific terms this means that the understanding will be different. Simple guidelines must be maintained: the level of explanatory power must be maintained. However, there is no reason to think that a different form of communication cannot be discovered, and cannot offer explanations which yield unthought of concepts.
First philosophicalish thread! Beat up at will...