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 :)
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 scientist one, the nature of this question being existential and dubious. To make our reasoning, 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].
The 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 auditive apparatus. On the other hand, the language is a "immaterial structure", communication of "meant" (ideas to which a word returns, a sign), which replaces the events, the objects in evocating characteristical structures forming the words. The language thus exists on two plans: on a semantic plan (according to the direction) and on a phonetics plan (according to the sound). Generally, the language is the support of all the human activities (professor, poet, singer…).
The subject has already been aborded through times: 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 personnal opinions to be as objective as possible in the treatement of the question.
ARGUMENTATION: 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 the 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 to say it, lacks also the thought… Deprived of the guard of the word, the thought étiole 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 which thought and words as a disadvantage of the thought " (Hegel: Philosophy of the spirit). Thus neither truth nor true conscience 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 the conscience appears "(Bouquins collections, Robert Laffont p.219).
Without external medium, here written one, how the thoughts of the Old can be transmitted to the future generations? The common opinion tends today to see a narrow continuity and complementarity between thought and language.
Against-argumentation: existence of a thought without language
In favour of the existence of a Thought without Language, the neurologists present the case of a very good scientific having a post-traumatic aphasia. He had verbal performances of a child of four or five years, but was very above the average for the performances with the nonverbal tests: it is the sign that thought and language are not totally linked. There is thus an internal representation of the ideas independently of the 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 the language supposes to cut out the infinitely moderate continuity of our interior life, while distinguishing there from 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, continues, that we try hopelessly, and unprofitably, to translate into our discrete language. From such a point of view, the 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 the others.
OUR POSITION
There are always rough discussions between partisans and adversaries with the idea of a Thought without language. Is the language essential to the development of the thought? Which of both precedes the other? Which exists without the different one? Here are somme questions without exact and precise answers. It is tempting to state that the Thought and the Language are indissociable but who never had the impression not to know to put words on what he feels.
Vygotsky (1896-1934) affirms that the language does not express the "opinion" but "carries it out".
Always 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 of this one in the words. It is precisely because the thought does not coincide not only with the words but also with the significances of the words which express it that 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 the words is impossible but always requires that it spawning time a complex way, one complain 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 like 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 ].
Within sight of the exposed arguments, we estimate that the language is not essential to the development of the thought and that, in fact, the latter precedes the other! The man thinks and carries out a minority of his thoughts thanks to the language or imagination… On the other hand, the training of the 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 the nature, the 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 stoppings.
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 visible way for the man, like the flight into eight of the bee to indicate to the its congeneric direction 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, but also, and especially, reactivates, which made it possible to the man to exceed the instinctive stage. Man thus could evolve to a more significant development, dependent of 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 of its utility, and on its ability to use the language to transmit its thought.
Man sat his domination on 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
"Do 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 synthetizing what wrote other people before us on this subject, targeting the great ideas that this question has inspired. We are thus leaning on the question thank to various texts traversing various times, describing various ways of considering the question. We could note at which point the opinions could diverge.
In our reality of every day, the language seems well to be a principal tool to advance the world. To be able to transfer the concepts that a person has at the head via the language is capital "to make the world evolve". Without effective communication, many beautiful the projects would never have exist. Each implied member having to take conscience of its role while having understood it and having interpreted correctly. The language is an asset that Man has on the 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 reflexion. Can be that the side more enriching by such a work is the fact that never two people do not think in the same way and that it is not to us right licence to moderate or to specify with its manner the thought of others. That consists of a very interesting professional work made judgement, of search of its own thought through its own personality and for nuances. This is why we turn over you the question to you, reader, "Who would be a thought without language?"…
