Unifying foundations - to be seen in the phenomenon of language

In English Scientific knowledge develops in an increasingly fragmentary way. A multitude of scientific disciplines branch out. Curiosity for this development leads into quests for a unifying understanding. To a certain extent, foundational studies provide such unification. There is a tendency, however, also of a fragmentary growth of foundational studies, like in a multitude of disciplinary foundations. We suggest to look at the foundational problem, not primarily as a search for foundations for one discipline in another, as in some reductionist approach, but as a steady revelation of presuppositions for individual scientific theories -- which are bound to meet, sooner or later, in a common language. A decisive point here is our holistic conception of language, as a whole of description-interpretation processes which are entangled (complementary) in the language itself. For every language there is a linguistic complementarity. We suggest this unique form of entanglement as a unifying presupposition, ultimately foundational for all communicable knowledge. Involved is a linguistic realism, in terms of which we critically examine "language-world" problems, as exposed by Wittgenstein, and Russell, about a foundational interdependence of language and reality (world). Throughout, we attach to the development of foundational studies of mathematics, logics, and the natural sciences. In particular, we study the interpretation problem for axioms of infinity in some detail. We emphasize that the holistic concept of language contradicts Carnap’s semiotic fragmentation thesis (thus, no clean cut between syntax, semantics, pragmatics).

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