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Language

Is it fair to say that analytic philosophy of language has been more concerned with language as (actual) use and language as (actual) knowledge than with the problem of correct interpretation? When I say "the problem of correct interpretation" I mean the problem of giving good reasons to justify the claim that some interpretation (a paraphrase or a translation) is correct or the correct one. I am aware that much has been written on the "indeterminacy of translation", but isn't it possible to give arguments for or against the correctness of a certain interpretation in spite of such "indeterminacy"? Where can I read about it?

There is a big literature on translation. It is a hard topic. I would start by reading Gadamer's TRUTH AND METHOD, parts II and III, as well as some of his essays in PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS. Also, read the excellent article by Dorit Bar-On in PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH on translation (I don't have the reference at my fingertips, but a search of her home page will turn it up), Tom Wartenburg's paper QUINE AND THE THIRD MANUAL, and, though hard to get, Luis Gomez' superb essay on translation of Buddhist philosophical texts and issues of accuracy and deisderata, THE WAY OF THE TRANSLATOR, published in an occasional journal called BUDDHIST LITERATURE. You might have to write to Gomez for a copy. Most people who have both translated and who have thought hard about translation agree that the right way to think about translation is not in terms of what is the CORRECT translation of a text, but rather to think about a large set of desiderata in a...
Language

Do we think in our native language? Can we speak German but think French? My French friend insists that we cannot as his native language is French yet when he speaks English he thinks in English and vice-versa.

There are actually three questions (at least) here: Do we think in a natural language? Is there a special role that our native language plays in our thought? Can more than one language play that role for a person? The first question is the basis of a major controversy in the foundations of cognitive science. Some argue that at the most fundamental level, all thought is conducted in an innate "language of thought" that the brain is wired to use. On this view, when you experience yourself thinking in French, the French is reprsensted in the language of thought, and the real thinking is going on in the LOT, not in the French. As I say, this view is controversial. Some critics of this view think that even though there is a level of thought more fundamental than that of which one is aware when one introspects and finds thoughts in one's natural language, that that thought is not in any language at all, but rather a form of cognition that cannot be expressed linguistically. Others argue that...
Language
Philosophers

My question is a little bit technical. As you know, from Heidegger to Structuralism, there is always a theme of an "iron cage". In other words, we are always bound by language, structure, or something else. This word "iron cage" was as far as I find used by Weber first. But, I wonder, who is the first western philosopher who used such an idea of being bounded by a surrounding system. For example, can we count Hegel as an "iron cage" philosopher as for him no one can go beyond the volksgeist ? Kind Regards, Nyouri Oezturk

Well, you'd have to include Kant, who argues that our knowledge is bounded by our perceptual and cognitive structures.