The document discusses the role of language and reason in the history of philosophy. It argues that language allows philosophers to communicate and debate ideas, while reason helps ideas make sense and be justified. Through competition and interpreting prior philosophies, language and reason have helped philosophy develop over time by improving ideas and correcting mistakes. The growth of language and reason also contributed to the beginning of the Renaissance by increasing the translation and spread of ideas between nations.

1. Ryohei Kimura
Senior Seminar P4
Dec. 6th 2011
The Role of Language and Reason in History of Philosophy - Final Essay
In history, language had developed as the way to communicate ideas, thoughts,
and facts with other people. Moreover, Reason has a great impact on history as well.
Philosophy is one of the studies that use Language and Reason to develop its ideas and
thoughts. Without language and reason, the philosophy would not develop as much as it
is now. Thus, Language and Reason had a great influence in development of philosophy
in history.
Philosophers had been improving their ideas by debating and competing with
each other. In ancient Rome, philosophers believed their idea is the best. Hence, they
often competed with other philosophers to beat others’ ideas. In this way, they can
prove to the others that their ideas are the best of the other philosophers. Through the
process of competition of ideas, Language and Reason is very important. It was very
necessary to justify and convince other philosophers with effective use of language.
Moreover, their ideas had to make sense so that reasoning was quite important as well.
Language and Reason played a great role on interpreting and correcting previous
philosophy. As the time passes, some philosophers tried to achieve further
understanding of previous philosophical ideas. Thus, use of Reason was pretty

2. important on communicating with those previous ideas. Moreover, they had to fix the
mistakes when they found that there were some mistakes or misunderstanding in the
previous ideas on philosophy. Hence, use of language had been done very carefully
when they fix those problems and derive into the most understandable phrases.
The development of language and reason in philosophy lead to the beginning of
Renaissance. As the communication between nations increased, trade of ideas between
nations also increased. Accordingly, the accuracy and frequency of translation had
developed and the Renaissance had begun. Clearly, Language had a great impact on the
Renaissance in translation of documents from other countries especially Greece.
Furthermore, Reasoning had also improved and there were new thoughts created during
the period of the Renaissance.
Overall, in history of philosophy, Language and Reason are great influence on
the development of the philosophical ideas. Today, the philosophy is not seen as
important as in the ancient history. However, it is also very essential to apply those
ideas of the philosophy using the Language and the Reason.