I think this is an important point but I don’t think you take it far enough. Language is for communication. One use of language is communicating science. It’s not a scientific challenge to realize you need a single word to describe breathing and fire. The words merely communicate the science; science has nothing to do with words or with “carving the world up” into words. Indeed natural language often fails to communicate science; scientists have to rely on formalizations.
The next step is to apply this to all of human psychology and realize that no aspect of human psychology relates to the world in any way; it’s convention all the way down.
I think this is an important point but I don’t think you take it far enough. Language is for communication. One use of language is communicating science. It’s not a scientific challenge to realize you need a single word to describe breathing and fire. The words merely communicate the science; science has nothing to do with words or with “carving the world up” into words. Indeed natural language often fails to communicate science; scientists have to rely on formalizations.
The next step is to apply this to all of human psychology and realize that no aspect of human psychology relates to the world in any way; it’s convention all the way down.