Natural Language

as Language of Thought
More Proof?

BRENT SILBY
Unlimited (UPT)
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

The nature of thought requires language

Remember in the first week we talked about our thoughts as

being productive and systematic

Systematic means that if I can understand the sentence

a loves b

then I’ll be able to understand

b loves a
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

Fodor thinks this requires mentalese because language is

required to form productive, systematic thoughts

Yes, language is required, but it is not mentalese.

Why?

Because our thoughts only become productive and systematic

after we acquire a natural language

If Fodor was right, we would see productive, systematic

thoughts in non-linguistic humans and animals
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

Experimental evidence shows that animal and pre-linguistic

infant thoughts are not productive and systematic

This is not to say that they do not think—it is simply to say that
their thoughts are different

Language provides a new way of thinking once people reach

a certain stage in development
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

This stage seems to coincide with children acquiring a symbolic

system of representation

The first stage of development

Sensory Motor Stage – birth to 2 years
Simple motor reflexes. Thoughts limited to co-ordination of sensory
information with simple body movements

The child eventually makes the first big cognitive jump in acquiring
“object permanence”

This is the beginning of symbolic thought – concepts can be

held in mind and represented by specific words
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

The lack of symbolic representation in infants gives support to

the idea that their thought processes lack the productive and
systematic features of a fully developed mind

Does this show that assimilation of a natural language is required

for human thoughts to be structured in that way?

Mentalese supporters could claim that mentalese doesn’t come

on-line until that stage of development.

Maybe object permanence stage is reached because mentalese

systems have fired up.
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

Remember, we should favor economy and simplicity in our

explanation, so lets not go down the mentalese line if
natural language can explain thought.
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

Further evidence comes from connectionist models of language

An artificial neural network that has been designed to acquire

language, but has no built in linguistic abilities has none of
the systematic, productive features of language.

But, it has been observed that as such a network acquires

language through training, these properties emerge.
(Garfield 1997: pg 429; see also Clark 1993 and Dennett 1991b)

Evidence from infant development leads us to think the same is

true of the brain
Evidence for Natural Language as Language of Thought

Natural language is an external technology that is productive

and systematic

After the mind acquires the concept of object permanence, it is

ready to assimilate natural language

It is at this time that the brain starts to produce thoughts that are
productive and systematic
In the next exciting episode…

The Last Stand! The Fight for Mentalese

I will consider arguments that deny the role natural language

plays in thinking.
Powerpoint by BRENT SILBY

Produced at UPT
Christchurch, New Zealand
www.unlimited.school.nz