Revealing the Language of Thought

An e-book by

BRENT SILBY

This paper was produced at the Department of Philosophy,University of Canterbury, New Zealand

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ContentsAbstractChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Thinking Sentences

1. Preliminary Thoughts2. The Language of Thought Hypothesis3. The Map Alternative4. Problems with Mentalese

Chapter 3: Installing New Technology: Natural Language and the Mind

1. Introduction2. Language... what's it for?3. Natural Language as the Language of Thought4. What can we make of the evidence?

Chapter 4: The Last Stand... Don't Replace The Old Code Yet

1. The Fight for Mentalese2. Pinker's Resistance3. Pinker's Continued Resistance4. A Concluding Thought about Thought

Chapter 5: A Direction for Future Thought

1. The Review2. The Conclusion3. Expanding the mind beyond the confines of the biological brain

References / Acknowledgments

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Abstract

Language of thought theories fall primarily into two views. The first view seesthe language of thought as an innate language known as mentalese, which ishypothesized to operate at a level below conscious awareness while at thesame time operating at a higher level than the neural events in the brain. Thesecond view supposes that the language of thought is not innate. Rather, thelanguage of thought is natural language. So, as an English speaker, mylanguage of thought would be English.My goal is to defend the second view. My methodology will see theproject broken down into three major areas. First I will show that humanthinking requires a language of thought, after which I will highlight someproblems with assuming that this language is innate and hidden. Included inthis section will be a small introduction to the compatibility problem. Thecompatibility problem offers some obvious difficulties for mentalese theoriesand these will be discussed. The next stage of the project will focus onevidence that can be put forward in support of the claim that natural languageis the language of thought. Our most direct source of evidence comes fromintrospection, and this will play a dominant role in the discussion. The final partof the thesis will involve an examination of the principle arguments that havebeen put forward against the idea that natural language is the language of thought. My goal will be to show that these arguments do not entail theexistence of mentalese, nor do they show that natural language is not thelanguage of thought. I will provide answers to the arguments, and will explainthe phenomena they point to in terms of natural language being the languageof thought.

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