Non-PRO English to Russian Art/Literary History contextual phrase

Fundamentally, we can understand the way in which language represents the world to us, in terms of two opposing positions. According to one view, human beings generally (whatever their culture or language) are endowed with a common stock of basic concepts – “conceptual primes” as they are sometimes known.
Language, according to this view, is merely a vehicle for expressing the conceptual system, which exists independently of it. And, because all the conceptual systems share a common basis, all languages turn out to be fundamentally similar. According to this position, thought determines language. We might characterize this view as the “universalist” position.
The alternative position maintains that thought is difficult to separate from language; each is woven inextricably into the other. Concepts can only take shape if and when we have words and structures in which to express them. Thinking depends crucially upon language. Because the vocabularies and structures of separate languages can vary so widely, it makes no sense to posit conceptual primes of a universal nature. Habitual users of one language will experience and understand the world in ways peculiar to that language and different from those of habitual users of another language. The latter viewpoint might be termed the “relativist” position.