Talk:The thought without language

Please see What Wikipedia is not #9: Wikipedia is not a place for personal essay. This article should belong to meta. --Lorenzarius 12:49 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * however, this stuff might be useful, if rephrased/rewritten appropriately - perhaps at Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in a section on the philosophical issues, or some other place. Anyway, I'm preserving it below, in case someone wants to work on it further :)

I agree that the content is good and useful. The original authors appear to be French. I, a native English speaker, have edited their comments, trying to make the vocabulary and syntax idiomatic English, while retaining the content.

TITLE "What would be a thought without language? ". Another formulation of the same question: "does a thought without language exists and, if so, how would it be?"

INTRODUCTION

We don’t often ask ourselves this kind of question but answering it or at least trying to answer it might allow us to evolve in the search for ourselves. However, it is practically impossible for us to bring a categorical answer, nor even a scientific one, the nature of this question being existential and dubious. To reason this clearly, it is necessary to precisely define the concepts used (language and thought).

To think means "to form ideas in its mind; to conceive concepts, opinions, by the activity of the intelligence, the reflexion "[ Larousse, n°2 ]. For other authors, to think, it is to conceive, form concepts (Plato, Aristote, Descartes); it is to judge (Kant, Brunschvicg); it is to reason (Hegel, Hamelin) [La pensée, n°3].

Language is[Le langage, n°4 ]: on the one hand, a physical fact, a production of sounds by the vocal apparatus, a perception by the auditory apparatus. On the other hand, language is an "immaterial structure", communication of "meant" ideas to which a word returns, a sign, which replaces the events, the objects in evoking characteristic structures forming the words. Language thus exists on two levels: on a semantic level (according to the direction) and on a phonetic level (according to the sound). Generally, language is the support of all the human activities (professor, poet, singer…). The subject has already been broached in different eras: Plato, 427-348/347 front. JC), Hegel (1770-1831), Saussure(1857-1913), Benveniste (1902-1976). The subject will only be treated from a philosophical point of view. We shall not give any personal opinions to be as objective as possible in the treatment of the question.

ARGUMENT: Thought and Language are indissociable

Some philosophers believe in strong links between Thought and Language. Following them, the Thought does not exist without the Langage vehicle. The thought can be communicated to the others only thanks to the words, to the language.

According to Hegel, what cannot be expressed is a pure matter without form which can take form only through language, the verbal explanation. Man can be delivered of its own confusion only by "the beautiful chains of the language", as wrote Paul Valéry (1871-1945). "Where the words miss saying it, lacks also the thought… Deprived of the guard of the word, the thought withers and dies" (Clement Rosset).

The strong tandem Thought-Language is according to Hegel rather an advantage "And it is also absurd to regard this need in thought of words as a disadvantage of the thought" (Hegel: Philosophy of the spirit). Thus neither truth nor true consciousness without the language: an indissociable tandem.

For Merleau-Ponty (Maurice) (1908-1961), "the thought is nothing interior, it does not exist out of the world and out of the words". No possible ambiguity: the thought cannot exist without its vector of signs which is the language taken in a broader direction: words but also unspecified signs.

For Nietzsche (1844-1920), ".... it is this conscious thought only which is carried out in words, i.e. communication, by what the origin of consciousness appears" (Bouquins collections, Robert Laffont p.219).

Without external medium, how can the thoughts of the Old be transmitted to the future generations? Common opinion tends today to see a narrow continuity and complementarity between thought and language.

Against-argumentation: existence of a thought without language

In favor of the existence of Thought without Language, neurologists present the case of a man with post-traumatic aphasia. He had verbal performance of a child of four or five years, but was very above average for performance on nonverbal tests: it is a sign that thought and language are not totally linked. There is thus an internal representation of ideas independent of language. Indeed when the brain manufactures a sentence, the sentence in the course of manufacture does not mean anything, and to continue the construction, the brain needs a referent already known, in order to translate it with words.

An additional argument is brought by Bergson: the use of language supposes to cut out the infinitely moderate continuity of our interior life, while distinguishing the states by the artifice of some juxtaposed words. "From which this failure comes", underlines Bergson, "if not what reality perhaps seized only directly, in the silence of the unutterable intuition"?

The Thought is thus assimilated to our whole interior life. We try, hopelessly and unsuccessfully, to translate it into our discrete language. From such a point of view, language does not have any more a vital importance for the individual: it is simply a formidable social and useful instrument to get into the human mental universe, to extract from it information and to communicate it to others.

OUR POSITION

There are always rough discussions between partisans and adversaries about the idea of thought without language. Is the language essential to the development of the thought? Which precedes the other? Which exists without the other one? Here are some questions without exact and precise answers. It is tempting to state that Thought and Language are indissociable, but who has not had the experience of being unable to put what he feels into words? Vygotsky (1896-1934) affirms that language does not express the "opinion" but "carries it out.”

According to Vygotsky, the thought does not coincide immediately with the verbal expression "One could compare the thought with a heavy cloud which pours a rain of words. This is why the passage of the thought to the language is an extremely complex process of decomposition of the thought and reconstitution in words. It is precisely because the thought does not coincide only with the words but also with the significance of the words which express it. The way of the thought to the word passes through the significance. Our speech always comprises an ulterior motive, a latent direction. As the direct passage of the thought to words is impossible but always requires a complex spawning time, one complains about the imperfection of the word and one deplores impossibility of expressing the opinion. "[ Vygotsky, n°X ]

The thought being independent of the language, one could then consider a system other than the language "to carry out" the thought! Rousseau (1712-1778) proposes to us visual imagination as the only possible alternative. For Nietzsche (1844-1900), only a negligible part of the thought is expressed in words: "[… ]the thought that is conscious is only a small part of the total thought, [… ] - because it is this conscious thought only which is carried out in words, [… ]" [ Nietzsche, n°X ].

In view of the arguments we have laid out, we judge that language is not essential to the development of the thought and that, in fact, the latter precedes the former! The man thinks and carries out a minority of his thoughts thanks to the language or imagination… On the other hand, the training of reasoning cannot be conceived without language!

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PROFESSION OF ENGINEER

Which is the relationship between the profession of engineer and the philosophical question "What would be a thought without language"? It is noted that in nature, animals make wonders without however having the faculty of speaking: the bees build hives whose cells are perfect hexagons, the beavers set up very sophisticated dams.

These achievements are worthy of the occupation of engineer, and yet these animals do not have a language, or practically not. They however manage to communicate, sometimes in a way visible to man, like the flight into eight of the bee to indicate the direction of a fields of flowers.

The animals work here according to their instincts which are struck of automatism. They miss a more advanced form of active communication, which made it possible for man to exceed the instinctive stage. Man thus could evolve to a more significant development, dependent on the thought, and to the language which is the vehicle. In particular, the role of the engineer is significant: it conceives projects and seeks to carry them out, to materialize its thought. Is that possible without communicating (without language)?

The candidate engineer also learns how to measure the importance of sciences and mathematics, which will be its language to express the natural phenomena and the concepts that it has in the head. Later, the realization of a project will depend on the faculty of the engineer to convince us of its utility, and on his ability to use language to transmit his thought.

Man developed his domination of the other species by the development of his intelligence, of his thought. The language is thus an infinitely invaluable asset for the engineer, who will have to use it many different manners to convince, to communicate, to carry out projects.

CONCLUSION "Does a thought without language exists?” it is practically impossible for us to bring a categorical answer to this question. On the other hand, it is possible for us to moderate certain tracks of answers, in synthesizing what other people before us wrote on this subject, targeting the great ideas that this question has inspired. We are thus exploring the question thanks to various texts traversing various times, describing various ways of considering the question. We could note at which point the opinions diverge.

In our everyday reality, language seems to be a principal tool to advance the world. To be able to transfer the concepts that a person has in his head via language is capital "to make the world evolve". Without effective communication, many beautiful projects would never have existed. Each person has to be conscious of his role while having understood it and having interpreted correctly. Language is an asset that Man has over other species. Thanks to this vehicle, Man can seek to improve his condition continuously.

In the light of all these philosophical currents, we hope that our work would add some more ideas for your own reflection. It may be that our consideration is enriched by the fact that no two people think in the same way about this, and that it is not for us to moderate or to specify the thought of others. That comprises very interesting professional work to make a judgement, to search through one’s own thought through one’s own personality and nuance. This is why we turn over you the question to you, reader, "Who would be a thought without language?"…