Abstract

Carruthers suggests that natural language, in the form of inner speech, may be the vehicle of conscious propositional thought, but he argues that its fundamental cognitive role is as the medium of cross-modular thinking, both conscious and nonconscious. I argue that there is no evidence for nonconscious cross-modular thinking and that the most plausible view is that cross-modular thinking, like conscious propositional thinking, occurs only in inner speech.