Ramón Campos Pérez: un teórico del lenguaje dejado en el olvido

Abstract

Ramón Campos was very much influenced by the sensationist views current in French linguistic theory and developed these further, even to the point of drawing radical conclusions. In his opinion, abstraction is solely possible by using words. According to his ideas, articulated spoken language is the essential prerequisite for higher thought processes. Furthermore, the adjectives which name characteristics are derived from nouns. Memory and the formation of general ideas are the result of the “gift of the word” and by no means are actions of the human mind. Sign language, which was accepted in French linguistic theory as a precursor of spoken language, is not enough for carrying out abstractions. The tendency of thought to concretise contributes to the dissemination of abstractions. No dependent or referential word can be understood as the original word. He also developed these ideas in his treatise De la desigualdad personal en la sociedad civil (‘On personal inequality in civil society’), where they became the basis of a new ethics of communication. This paper intends to explore the concept of the “gift of the word”, which according to Campos is the only instrument of abstraction and analysis. Applying this concept, human thought can be divided into two capacities or powers: imagination and memory.