MindPapers: 2.1a. The Language of Thought

Abbott, Barbara (1995). Natural language and thought: Thinking in English. Behavior and Philosophy 23 (2):49-55. (Google)

Aydede, Murat (2004). Language of thought hypothesis: State of the art. (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)

Abstract: The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) is an empirical thesis about thought and thinking. For their explication, it postulates a physically realized system of representations that have a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. According to LOTH, thought is, roughly, the tokening of a representation that has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantics. Thinking thus consists in syntactic operations defined over representations. Most of the arguments for LOTH derive their strength from their ability to explain certain empirical phenomena like productivity, systematicity of thought and thinking

Aydede, Murat (2000). On the type/token relation of mental representations. Facta Philosophica 2:23-50. (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)

Abstract: According to the Computational/Representational Theory of Thought (CRTT ≈ Language of Thought Hypothesis, or LOTH), propositional attitudes, such as belief, desire, and the like, are triadic relations among subjects, propositions, and internal mental representations. These representations form a representational _system_ physically realized in the brain of sufficiently sophisticated cognitive organisms. Further, this system of representations has a combinatorial syntax and semantics, but the processes that operate on the representations are causally sensitive only to their syntax, not to their semantics. On this approach, a first pass account of propositional attitudes is the following (cf. Field 1978: 37 and Fodor 1987: 17)

Aydede, Murat (online). The language of thought hypothesis. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Cited by 15 | Google | More links)

Abstract: 1 *Common Sense Conception of Beliefs and Other Propositional Attitudes 2 What is the Language of Thought Hypothesis? 3 Status of LOTH 4 Scope of LOTH 5 *Natural Language as Mentalese? 6 *Nativism and LOTH 7 Naturalism and LOTH

Barnette, R. L. (1975). Intentional scraps. Southern Journal of Philosophy 13 (1):13-20. (Google)

Beckermann, Ansgar (1994). Can there be a language of thought? In R Casati, B. Smith & G White (eds.), Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences. Proceedings of the 16th International Wittgenstein Symposium. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky. (Google | More links)

Abstract: 1. Cognitive sciences in a broad sense are simply all those sciences which concern themselves with the analysis and explanation of cognitive capacities and achievements. If one speaks of _cognitive science_ in the singular, however, usually something more is meant. Cognitive science is not only characterized by a specific object of research, but also through a particular kind of explanatory paradigm, i.e. the information processing paradigm. Stillings _et. al. _for example begin their book _Cognitive Science _as follows:

Cognitive scientists view the human mind as a complex system that receives, stores,
retrieves, transforms, and transmits information. (Stillings 1987: 1)

The information processing paradigm however, leads directly to the paradigm of symbol processing, because a system can, as it seems, only receive, store and process information if it has at its disposal a system of internal representations or _symbols_, i.e. an internal language in which this information is encoded. At least this appears to be an idea which suggests itself and which Peter Hacker expresses as follows

Blumson, Ben (online). Mental maps. (Google)

Abstract: It’s often hypothesized that the structure of mental representation is map-like rather than language-like. The possibility arises as a counterexample to the argument from the best explanation of productivity and systematicity for the Language of Thought Hypothesis – the hypothesis that mental structure is language-like. In this paper, I argue that the Map Hypothesis does not undermine the argument, because it is not in fact a genuine alternative to the Language of Thought Hypothesis

Blutner, Reinhard; Hendriks, Petra; de Hoop, Helen & Schwartz, Oren (2004). When compositionality fails to predict systematicity. In Simon D. Levy & Ross Gayler (eds.), Compositional Connectionism in Cognitive Science. AAAI Press. (Google | More links)

Abstract: has to do with the acquisition of encyclopedic knowledge

BonJour, Laurence A. (1991). Is thought a symbolic process? Synthese 89 (3):331-52. (Cited by 5 | Google | Annotation)

Braddon-Mitchell, David & Fitzpatrick, J. (1990). Explanation and the language of thought. Synthese 83 (1):3-29. (Cited by 4 | Google | Annotation)

Cain, M. J. (2002). Fodor: Language, Mind, and Philosophy. Polity Press. (Cited by 9 | Google)

Carruthers, Peter (2003). On Fodor's problem. Mind and Language 18 (5):502-523. (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)

Carruthers, Peter (1998). Thinking in language?: Evolution and a modularist possibility. In Peter Carruthers & Jill Boucher (eds.), Language and Thought. Cambridge. (Cited by 38 | Google | More links)

Abstract: This chapter argues that our language faculty can both be a peripheral module of the mind and be crucially implicated in a variety of central cognitive functions, including conscious propositional thinking and reasoning. I also sketch arguments for the view that natural language representations (e.g. of Chomsky's Logical Form, or LF) might serve as a lingua franca for interactions (both conscious and non-conscious) between a number of quasi-modular central systems. The ideas presented are compared and contrasted with the evolutionary proposals made by Derek Bickerton (1990, 1995), who has also argued for the involvement of language in thought. Finally, I propose that it was the evolution of a mechanism responsible for pretend play, circa 40,000 years ago, which led to the explosion of creative culture visible in the fossil record from that time onwards

Chalmers, David J. (1999). Is there synonymy in ockham's mental language. In P.V. Spade (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. Cambridge. (Cited by 3 | Google)

Abstract: William of Ockham's semantic theory was founded on the idea that thought takes place in a language not unlike the languages in which spoken and written communication occur. This mental language was held to have a number of features in common with everyday languages. For example, mental language has simple terms, not unlike words, out of which complex expressions can be constructed. As with words, each of these terms has some meaning, or signification; in fact Ockham held that the signification of everyday words derives precisely from the signification of mental terms. Furthermore, the meaning of a mental expression depends directly on the meaning of its constituent terms, as is the case with expressions in more familiar languages

Clapin, Hugh (1997). Problems with principle P. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (3):261-77. (Google | More links)

Clark, Andy (1988). Thoughts, sentences and cognitive science. Philosophical Psychology 1:263-78. (Cited by 15 | Google)

Cole, David J. (manuscript). Hearing yourself think: Natural language, inner speech, and thought. (Cited by 2 | Google)

Abstract: "Mantras were not viewed as the only means of expressing truth, however. Thought, which was defined as internalized speech, offered yet another aspect of truth. And if words and thoughts designated different aspects of truth, or reality, then there had to be an underlying unity behind all phenomena" (S. A. Nigosian 1994: World Faiths, p. 84)

Cole, David J. (1999). I don't think so: Pinker on the mentalese monopoly. Philosophical Psychology 12 (3):283-295. (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Stephen Pinker sets out over a dozen arguments in The language instinct (Morrow, New York, 1994) for his widely shared view that natural language is inadequate as a medium for thought. Thus he argues we must suppose that the primary medium of thought and inference is an innate propositional representation system, mentalese. I reply to the various arguments and so defend the view that some thought essentially involves natural language. I argue mentalese doesn't solve any of the problems Pinker cites for the view that we think in natural language. So I don't think I think the way he thinks I think

Cole, David J. (manuscript). Pinker on the thinker: Against mentalese monopoly. (Google)

Abstract: thought and problem solving in persons lacking natural language altogether would be a decisive challenge, but there is no clear evidence of any abstract thinking capabilities similar to those evinced by the scientists. Pinker cites languageless persons rebuilding broken locks - this is evidence of perhaps visual imagery, but not mentalese (at least not without quite a bit more detail and argument than we are given). Spiders, e.g., build marvelous things, but no inference to spiderese appears to be warranted. There simply is much we don’t understand about how even unintelligent organisms accomplish what they do, and while there must be some physical basis underlying the complex behaviors, there is not evidence that propositional representation systems are involved. The same considerations would apply to similar manifestations in humans. It could even turn out that some mathematical ability may have a basis in a facility that is closer to image processing or a mechanical calculator than it is to a proposition manipulator

Crane, Tim (1990). The language of thought: No syntax without semantics. Mind and Language 5:187-213. (Cited by 12 | Google)

Davies, Martin (2004). Aunty's argument and armchair knowledge. In J.M. Larrazabal & L.A Perez Miranda (eds.), Language, Knowledge, and Representation. Kluwer. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Abstract: In my contribution to the Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on Cognitive Science, held in Donostia (San Sebastián) in 1989, I advanced what I called ‘Aunty’s own argument for the language of thought’.¹ The Aunty in question is Jerry Fodor’s. He represents her as a conservative figure who is more likely to favour connectionism than to accept that there are good reasons to adopt the language of thought hypothesis.² As I envisaged her, she has some sympathy for the views of the later Wittgenstein but is fundamentally a neo-Fregean. I claimed that the neo-Fregean framework offers Aunty the resources to construct her own argument for the language of thought hypothesis, an argument that is relatively non-empirical in character.³

Davies, Martin (1992). Aunty's own argument for the language of thought. In Jesús Ezquerro & J. M. Larrazabal (eds.), Cognition, Semantics and Philosophy. Kluwer. (Cited by 13 | Google)

Davies, Martin (online). In the armchair, down and out. (Google)

Abstract: Sitting in the philosopher’s armchair, I am not engaged in any detailed empirical investigation of the world. But, as I pursue philosophy’s distinctive armchair methodology, I sometimes come upon arguments that appear to disclose requirements for thought. According to some of these arguments, being a thinking person requires having the right kind of history, or having the right kind of cognitive architecture. According to other arguments, being able to think about particular topics requires being a member of a community of speakers, or being in contact with the right kinds of stuff. These arguments have the potential to raise an epistemological problem. For, suppose that armchair philosophical arguments such as these can yield knowledge about requirements for thought, and suppose too that I can know from the armchair that I am a thinking being who has thoughts about various particular topics. Then I seem to have a route to armchair knowledge about my history, my cognitive architecture, my community, and my material environment – knowledge about these things that does not depend on detailed empirical investigation of the world

Davies, Martin (1998). Language, thought, and the language of thought (aunty's own argument revisited). In P. Carruthers & J. Boucher (eds.), Language and Thought. Cambridge University Press. (Cited by 5 | Google | More links)

Abstract: In this chapter, I shall be examining an argument for the language of thought hypothesis – an argument which, in earlier work (Davies, 1992; see also 1991), I have called ‘Aunty’s own argument for the language of thought’. That will be the business of Sections 2-5. In the final section, I shall briefly mention some points of contact between this argument for the language of thought (LOT) hypothesis and the hypothesis that is the topic of Peter Carruthers’s book, Language, Thought and Consciousness, which I shall call the thinking in natural language (TNL) hypothesis. Before beginning on Aunty’s own argument, however, I shall briefly present a framework for organising questions about the relative priority of thought and language

Dennett, Daniel C. (1978). A Cure for the Common Code. In Daniel C. Dennet (ed.), Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Bradford Books. (Cited by 20 | Google | Annotation)

Dennett, Daniel C. (1975). Brain writing and mind reading. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:403-15. (Cited by 14 | Google | Annotation)

Dennett, Daniel C. (1990). Granny's campaign for safe science. In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell. (Cited by 9 | Google | More links | Annotation)

DeWitt, Richard (1995). Vagueness, semantics, and the language of thought. Psyche 1. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Dunlop, Charles E. M. (1990). Conceptual dependency as the language of thought. Synthese 82 (2):275-96. (Google | Annotation)

Egan, M. F. (1991). Propositional attitudes and the language of thought. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (September):379-88. (Cited by 4 | Google | Annotation)

Field, Hartry (1978). Mental representation. Erkenntnis 13 (July):9-18. (Cited by 179 | Google | Annotation)

Fodor, Jerry A. (2001). Language, thought and compositionality. Mind and Language 16 (1):1-15. (Cited by 39 | Google | More links)

Fodor, Jerry A. (1978). Propositional attitudes. The Monist 61 (October):501-23. (Cited by 61 | Google | Annotation)

Fodor, Jerry A. (1975). The Language of Thought. Harvard University Press. (Cited by 1815 | Google | Annotation)

Fodor, Jerry A. (1987). Why there still has to be a language of thought. In Psychosemantics. MIT Press. (Cited by 15 | Google | Annotation)

Garfield, Jay L. (2000). Thought as language: A metaphor too far. Protosociology 14:85-101. (Cited by 4 | Google)

Garson, James W. (1997). Syntax in a dynamic brain. Synthese 110 (3):343-55. (Cited by 8 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Gauker, Christopher (1995). Thinking Out Loud: An Essay on the Relation Between Thought and Language. Princeton University Press. (Cited by 30 | Google)

Harman, Gilbert (1977). How to use propositions. American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (April):173-176. (Cited by 8 | Google)

Harman, Gilbert (1978). Is there mental representation? Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 9. (Cited by 3 | Google)

Harman, Gilbert (1975). Language, thought, and communication. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:270-298. (Cited by 15 | Google | Annotation)

Harman, Gilbert (1973). Thought. Princeton University Press. (Cited by 227 | Google)

Hauser, Larry (1995). Natural language and thought: Doing without mentalese. Behavior and Philosophy 23 (2):41-47. (Google)

Heil, John (1981). Does cognitive psychology rest on a mistake? Mind 90 (February):321-42. (Cited by 15 | Google | More links | Annotation)

Hendricks, Scott (2006). Sententialism and the problem of clutter. Acta Analytica 21 (40):74-84. (Google)

Johnson, Kent (2004). On the systematicity of the language of thought. Journal of Philosophy 101 (3):111-139. (Cited by 6 | Google)

Kaye, Lawrence J. (1994). The computational account of belief. Erkenntnis 40 (2):137-53. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Kaye, Lawrence J. (1995). The languages of thought. Philosophy of Science 62 (1):92-110. (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)

Knowles, Jonathan (1998). The language of thought and natural language understanding. Analysis 58 (4):264-272. (Cited by 4 | Google | More links)

Kuczynski, John-Michael M. (2004). Another argument against the thesis that there is a language of thought. Communication and Cognition 37 (2):83-103. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Laurence, Stephen & Margolis, Eric (1997). Regress arguments against the language of thought. Analysis 57 (1):60-66. (Cited by 10 | Google | More links)

Laurence, Stephen & Margolis, Eric (1999). Where the regress argument still goes wrong: Reply to Knowles. Analysis 59 (264):321-327. (Google | More links)

Abstract: The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOT) is at the centre of a number of the most fundamental debates about the mind. Yet many philosophers want to reject LOT out of hand on the grounds that it is essentially a recid- ivistic doctrine, one that has long since been refuted. According to these philosophers, LOT is subject to a devastating regress argument. There are several versions of the argument, but the basic idea is as follows. (1) Natu- ral language has some important feature, X.¹ (2) Defenders of LOT appeal to an internal system of representation in order to explain this feature of natural language. (3) Yet the hypothesized language of thought also has X. (4) This raises the following dilemma: If we offer an analogous explanation of the language of thought’s having X, we are off on a regress. If we offer some other explanation, then the alternative explanation should have been given for natural language in the ﬁrst place, avoiding the detour through the language of thought

Levine, Joseph M. (1988). Demonstrating in mentalese. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (September):222-240. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Loar, Brian (1982). Must beliefs be sentences? Philosophy of Science Association. (Cited by 12 | Google)

Lycan, William G. (1993). A deductive argument for the representational theory of thinking. Mind and Language 8 (3):404-22. (Cited by 8 | Google | Annotation)

Lycan, William G. (1990). Mental content in linguistic form. Philosophical Studies 58 (1-2):147-54. (Google | Annotation)

Lycan, William G. (1982). Toward a homuncular theory of believing. Cognition and Brain Theory 4:139-59. (Cited by 18 | Google | Annotation)

Machery, Edouard (2005). You don't know how you think: Introspection and language of thought. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (3):469-485. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Abstract: recent cognitive theories into two antagonistic groups. Sententialists claim that we think in some language, while advocates of non-linguistic views of cognition deny this claim. The Introspective Argument for Sententialism is one of the most appealing arguments for sententialism. In substance, it claims that the introspective fact of inner speech provides strong evidence that our thoughts are linguistic. This article challenges this argument. I claim that the Introspective Argument for Sententialism confuses the content of our thoughts with their vehicles: while sententialism is a thesis about the vehicles of our thoughts, inner speech sentences are the content of auditory or articulatory images. The rebuttal of the introspective argument for sententialism is shown to have a general significance in cognitive science: introspection does not tell us how we think. The problem The introspective argument for sententialism The argument for the blindness of introspection thesis Objections and replies Conclusion

Maloney, J. Christopher (1989). The Mundane Matter of the Mental Language. Cambridge University Press. (Cited by 14 | Google | More links)

Maloney, J. Christopher (1984). The mundane mental language: How to do words with things. Synthese 59 (June):251-294. (Google)

Margolis, Eric & Laurence, Stephen (1999). Where the regress argument still goes wrong: Reply to Knowles. Analysis 59 (4):321-327. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Markic, Olga (2001). Is language of thought a conceptual necessity? Acta Analytica 16 (26):53-60. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Marras, Ausonio (1987). The weak and the strong representational theory of mind: Stich's interpretation of Fodor. Dialogue 26:349-55. (Google)

Matthews, Robert J. (1991). Is there vindication through representationalism? In Barry M. Loewer & Georges Rey (eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and His Critics. Blackwell. (Cited by 3 | Google | Annotation)

Matthews, Robert J. (1989). The alleged evidence for representationalism. In Stuart Silvers (ed.), Rerepresentation. Kluwer. (Cited by 4 | Google | Annotation)

Millikan, Ruth G. (1993). On mentalese orthography. In B. Dahlbom (ed.), Dennett and His Critics. Blackwell. (Cited by 14 | Google | Annotation)

Pessin, Andrew (1995). Mentalese syntax: Between a rock and two hard places. Philosophical Studies 78 (1):33-53. (Cited by 2 | Google | Annotation)

Pollock, John L. (1990). Understanding the language of thought. Philosophical Studies 58 (1-2):95-120. (Google | Annotation)

Rantala, V. & Vaden, Tere (1997). Minds as connoting systems: Logic and the language of thought. Erkenntnis 46 (3):315-334. (Google | More links)

Rey, Georges (1995). A not "merely empirical" argument for the language of thought. Philosophical Perspectives 9:201-22. (Cited by 9 | Google | More links)

Rupert, Robert D. (1998). On the relationship between naturalistic semantics and individuation criteria for terms in a language of thought. Synthese 117 (1):95-131. (Cited by 5 |

2.1c	Eliminativism [88]

2.1d	Beliefs [118]

2.1e	Desires [67]

2.1f	Thinking [17]

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