This is an initial survey of some philosophical questions about divine language. Could God be a language producer and language user? Could there be a divine private language? Could there be a divine language of thought? The answer to these questions that I shall tentatively defend are, respectively: Yes, No and No. (Because I use some technical terms from recent philosophy of language, there is an appendix to this chapter in (...) which I explain my use of those terms.). (shrink)

Attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias -the leading ancient commentator on Aristotle -the Quaestiones exemplify the process through which Aristotle's thought was organized and came to be interpreted as "Aristotelianism." This volume of R.W. Sharples's translation, together with his earlier translation of Quaestiones 1.1-2.15, makes the Quaestiones available in its entirety for the first time in a modern language. The Quaestiones are concerned with problems of physics and metaphysics, psychology and divine providence. Readers interested in Aristotle's psychological views (...) will find the second half of the Quaestiones particularly valuable. Ten of the problems discussed involve issues raised in Aristotle's On the Soul, including the unity of apperception and the transition from first to second actuality in the act of contemplation. An additional twelve problems relate to aspects of physical theory such as infinity, necessity, and potentiality. Quaestio 2.21 concerns divine providence and helps supplement our knowledge of Alexander's position. A study of the Quaestiones also suggests how interpretations of Aristotle were influenced by doctrines of Hellenistic philosophy. Translated first into Arabic and then into Latin, excerpts from the Quaestiones played a significant role in the transmission of ancient Greek philosophy to the medieval world. (shrink)

This chapter is an initial survey of some philosophical questions about divine language. Could God be a language producer and language user? Could there be a divine private language? Could there be a divine language of thought? The answer to these questions that I shall tentatively defend are, respectively: Yes, No and No. (Because I use some technical terms from recent philosophy of language, there is an appendix to this chapter (...) in which I explain my use of those terms.). (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to the Language of Though Hypothesis (LOTH) accessible to general audiences. 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. (shrink)

[This is an earlier (1997), much longer and more detailed version of my entry on LOTH in the _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_] 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. (shrink)

Annotated online bibliography on the Language of Thought Hypothesis.

A philosophical refashioning of the Language of Thought approach and the related computational theory of mind.

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the first twenty years of the twentieth century, stimulated by the impetuous development of logical studies and taking inspiration from Leibniz's idea of a characteristica universalis, the three founding fathers of the analytic tradition in philosophy, i.e., Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, started to talk of a logically perfect language, as opposed to natural languages, all feeling that the latter were inadequate to their (different) philosophical purposes. In the second half of the (...) twentieth century, however, the very idea of a logically perfect language ceased for various reasons to seem attractive to analytic philosophers. Thus, it might appear that this idea could be classified together with the many other bizarre ideas that from time to time surface in the history of philosophy-an idea that perhaps had a beneficial impact on the development of twentieth century logic, but which can now be put to rest. In this brief note, I contend that this conclusion may be too hasty. Indeed, if a well-known empirical hypothesis advanced in 1975 by Jerry Fodor turns out to be true, then there is a logically perfect language, after all. More precisely, I argue that, if it exists, Fodor's language of thought possesses the main characteristics a logically perfect language is required to have. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor presents a new development of his famous Language of Thought hypothesis, which has since the 1970s been at the centre of interdisciplinary debate about how the mind works. Fodor defends and extends the groundbreaking idea that thinking is couched in a symbolic system realized in the brain. This idea is central to the representational theory of mind which Fodor has established as a key reference point in modern philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. The foundation stone of (...) our present cognitive science is Turing's suggestion that cognitive processes are not associations but computations; and computation requires a language of thought. So the latest on the Language of Thought hypothesis, from its progenitor, promises to be a landmark in the study of the mind. LOT 2 offers a more cogent presentation and a fuller explication of Fodor 's distinctive account of the mind, with various intriguing new features. The central role of compositionality in the representational theory of mind is revealed: most of what we know about concepts follows from the compositionality of thoughts. Fodor shows the necessity of a referentialist account of the content of intentional states, and of an atomistic account of the individuation of concepts. Not least among the new developments is Fodor 's identification and persecution of pragmatism as the leading source of error in the study of the mind today. LOT 2 sees Fodor advance undaunted towards the ultimate goal of a theory of the cognitive mind, and in particular a theory of the intentionality of cognition. No one who works on the mind can ignore Fodor 's views, expressed in the coruscating and provocative style which has delighted and disconcerted countless readers over the years. (shrink)

The target article attempted to draw connections between broad swaths of evidence by noticing a common thread: Abstract, symbolic, compositional codes, that is, language-of-thoughts (LoTs). Commentators raised concerns about the evidence and offered fascinating extensions to areas we overlooked. Here we respond and highlight the many specific empirical questions to be answered in the next decade and beyond.

According to the language of thought (or.

Many philosophers think that being in an intentional state is a matter of being related to a sentence in a mental language-a 'Language of Thought' (see especially Fodor 1975, 1987 Appendix; Field 1978). According to this view-which I shall call 'the LT hypothesis'-when anyone has a belief or a desire or a hope with a certain content, they have a sentence of this language, with that content, 'written' in their heads. The claim is meant quite literally: (...) the mental representations that make up the items of this language have semantic and syntactic properties. This is why, according to this view, cognitive psychology does, and should, treat that part of the mind which deals with intentional states as a semantic and a syntactic 'engine'. (shrink)

This edited volume presents new lines of research dealing with the language of thought and its philosophical implications in the time of Ockham. It features more than 20 essays that also serve as a tribute to the ground-breaking work of a leading expert in late medieval philosophy: Claude Panaccio. Coverage addresses topics in the philosophy of mind and cognition, concepts, logic and language, action theory, and more. A distinctive feature of this work is that it brings together (...) contributions in both French and English, the two major research languages today on the main theme in question. It unites the most renowned specialists in the field as well as many of Claude Panaccio’s former students who have engaged with his work over the years. In furthering this dialogue, the essays render key topics in fourteenth-century thought accessible to the contemporary philosophical community without being anachronistic or insensitive to the particularities of the medieval context. As a result, this book will appeal to a general population of philosophers and historians of philosophy with an interest in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. (shrink)

In the verse (2:31) of the Qur’ān, it is mentioned that all names were taught to Adam (PBUH). This verse indicates that revelation is decisively the source of language. On the other hand, it is a common fact that people have been constantly producing symbols to express new ideas and concepts. This situation makes it necessary to associate the utterance (muṭlaq) and static with the relative (al-muqayyah) and dynamic between language and reality in religious thought. In the (...) historical process, Mutakallims have undertaken the responsibility of understanding and interpretation between the transcendent dimension of the religion (ad-Dīn) indicated in the Qur’ān and the innovative and dynamic dimension of life. The Mutakallims’ responsibility continues today. However, to establish the relationship among language, thought, and existence in today’s kalâm, it is necessary to identify the roots of this subject in kalām’s classical sources. In our study designed for this purpose, the truth and value of naming divine meanings in the context of ta‘līm al-asmā’ are examined. On the other hand, since dealing with such a large subject in a limited study is not possible, it is just focused on the research of linguistic theories, the relationship between language and thought, and the issue of whether the names used in the main sources to indicate the meanings are divinely determined (tawqīfī). In fact, it has been determined that the subject of ta'līm al-asmā’ is overshadowed by the vehement debates over the createdness of the Qur’ān (Khalq al-Qur’ān) and the relationship between Allāh’s essence and His attributes, although it is a Qur’ān-centered issue. As can be seen in the study, the approach of the Mutakallims to the issue of ta‘līm al-asmā’ is parallel to their understanding of Allāh’s essence and His attributes. As stated in this research, if the divine names were determined by Allāh, then Allāh’s names will be eternal. Besides, if the names expressed in human languages are the same as the essence of Allāh, this will lead to the problem of eternality. If it is said that the names are separated and unrelated from Allāh’s essence, there will be also more than one independent and eternal being. The idea of multiple eternal beings is against the principle of tawḥīd. However, in cases where the distinction between attributes and essence of Allāh is separated from each other in the mind, it causes attributes to be considered as something existing independently of the essence of Allāh. Therefore, as stated in the study, Mu‘tazilite theologians, who were very sensitive about this issue, attached great importance to the concept of eternity (qadīm) while transcending the essence of Allāh from the attributes of the created. As they appealed to tanzīh by which they transcend Him from all the originated things in time, they were focused on His eternality (qidam). In this regard, all His actions concerning the universe are regarded as temporal, in other words, originated in time (ḥādith). From this point of view, according to them, Allāh’s names specified in the Qur’ān are created just like the Qur’ān itself. Although their meanings are within the boundaries of the Divine Knowledge, their wordings (lafiẓ) belong to humans. Therefore, these names (asmâ’) that people use to describe Allāh in their speech, as Abū ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī argues, are determined by the convention of the human. It has been determined by people via consensus, like other words of the language, to indicate the essence and attributes of Allāh in a language because of communication. Then, Allāh has sent down His message to people with these words. The conclusion that Mu‘tazilite theologians have regarded the connection of names with the meanings in Allāh’s knowledge as a linguistic use, while Sunnī theologians have addressed this issue based on the creative act (Khalq) of Allāh. There is another explanation which is known as the theory of faculty or habitus as an alternative way. Some Ash‘arî and Māturīdī theologians supported this theory. Today, the importance of this new perspective is clear, which appears another association of both ideas. In this context, it has been determined that the views of Māturīdī, who attributes the content (or meaning) of revelation (waḥy) to Allāh while arguing that its wordings belong to humans, are more appropriate to the theory of the faculty (malakah). (shrink)

Fodor and Pylyshyn's critique of connectionism has posed a challenge to connectionists: Adequately explain such nomological regularities as systematicity and productivity without postulating a "language of thought" (LOT). Some connectionists like Smolensky took the challenge very seriously, and attempted to meet it by developing models that were supposed to be non-classical. At the core of these attempts lies the claim that connectionist models can provide a representational system with a combinatorial syntax and processes sensitive to syntactic structure. They (...) are not implementation models because, it is claimed, the way they obtain syntax and structure sensitivity is not "concatenative," hence "radically different" from the way classicists handle them. In this paper, I offer an analysis of what it is to physically satisfy/realize a formal system. In this context, I examine the minimal truth-conditions of LOT Hypothesis. From my analysis it will follow that concatenative realization of formal systems is irrelevant to LOTH since the very notion of LOT is indifferent to such an implementation level issue as concatenation. I will conclude that to the extent to which they can explain the law-like cognitive regularities, a certain class of connectionist models proposed as radical alternatives to the classical LOT paradigm will in fact turn out to be LOT models, even though new and potentially very exciting ones. (shrink)

I critically explore various forms of the language of thought (LOT) hypothesis. Many considerations, including the complexity of representational content and the systematicity of language understanding, support the view that some, but not all, of our mental representations occur in a language. I examine several arguments concerning sententialism and the propositional attitudes, Fodor's arguments concerning infant and animal thought, and Fodor's argument for radical concept nativism and show that none of these considerations require us to (...) postulate a LOT that is innate or otherwise distinct from spoken languages. Instead, I suggest that we maintain the more conservative hypothesis, supported by introspection, that some of our thoughts occur in the languages that we speak. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor’s arguments for a language of thought (LOT) are largely theoretical. Is there any empirical evidence that supports the existence of LOT? There is. Research on Global Aphasia supports the existence of LOT. In this paper, I discuss this evidence and why it supports Fodor’s theory that there is a language of thought.

Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis have recently argued that certain kinds of regress arguments against the language of thought (LOT) hypothesis as an account of how we understand natural languages have been answered incorrectly or inadequately by supporters of LOT ('Regress arguments against the language of thought', Analysis, 57 (1), 60-6, J 97). They argue further that this does not undermine the LOT hypothesis, since the main sources of support for LOT are (or might be) independent (...) of it providing an account of how we understand natural language. In my paper I seek to refute both these claims, and reinstate the putative explanation of natural language understanding as a necessarily central part of the support for LOT. The main argument exploits the fact that Laurence and Margolis give too little weight to the ideas (a) that LOT might be innate (b) that for LOT supporters a semantic theory must apply to in-the-head tokens, not linguistic utterances. (shrink)

Quilty-Dunn et al. maintain that language-of-thought hypothesis (LoTH) is the best game in town. We counter that LoTH is merely one source of models – always wrong, sometimes useful. Their reasons for liking LoTH are compatible with the view that LoTH provides a sometimes pragmatically useful level of abstraction over processes and mechanisms that fail to fully live up to LoT requirements.

Pierre Hadot's analysis of the role of ancient philosophical discourse in the formation of a philosophical self allows us to extend to the interpretation of Aristotle the counter-Heideggerian Platonic hermeneutics of Gadamer, Strauss and Klein. Central to Plato's and Aristotle's rhetorical/pedagogical strategy is the development of the language of theoria to formulate the goal of philosophical formation. ;Traditional meanings of theoria refer to attendance at public festivals and consultation of oracles. Plato first extends its meaning to express the vision (...) of timeless truths. However, he does not give theoria a single meaning intended to express the philosophical experience, but has Socrates employ it dialectically according to the characters and aspirations of diverse interlocutors. ;Aristotle gives the language of theoria a twofold development, systematically forging a language for acts of cognition while also reshaping the objects of his students' aspirations. In the Nicomachean Ethics , he exploits the aristocratic aspiration to preeminence that aims at rule, replacing the statesman with the philosopher as object of emulation. The language of theoria in the final chapters borrows grandeur from the objects that at this point wisdom is said to pursue, the stars and cosmos; as in the Republic, the human mind is said to enjoy godlike theoria. In his natural philosophy, Aristotle shifts the focus from stars to animals; theoria loses the grandeur it had in the Ethics and comes to express the thoughtful observation of the causes of natural phenomena. ;In the Metaphysics, Aristotle makes more explicit the ethics proper to the life of inquiry, based on the radical experience of aporia about the most fundamental questions of being and the shared attempt to formulate these questions and pursue answers within the Lyceum culture. It involves liberation from the admiration accorded the transcendently wise man and delivering oneself to wonder at the most puzzling questions. This dissolution of the emulous relationship between teacher and student entails the creation of a greater distance between human and diving thought; in the theology of Book Lambda, theoria refers only to human thought, which cannot attain the same perfection as divine noesis. (shrink)

This edited volume presents new lines of research dealing with the language of thought and its philosophical implications in the time of Ockham. It features more than 20 essays that also serve as a tribute to the ground-breaking work of a leading expert in late medieval philosophy: Claude Panaccio. Coverage addresses topics in the philosophy of mind and cognition (externalism, mental causation, resemblance, habits, sensory awareness, the psychology, illusion, representationalism), concepts (universal, transcendental, identity, syncategorematic), logic and language (...) (definitions, syllogisms, modality, supposition, obligationes, et cetera), action theory (belief, will, action), and more. A distinctive feature of this work is that it brings together contributions in both French and English, the two major research languages today on the main theme in question. It unites the most renowned specialists in the field as well as many of Claude Panaccio's former students who have engaged with his work over the years. In furthering this dialogue, the essays render key topics in fourteenth-century thought accessible to the contemporary philosophical community without being anachronistic or insensitive to the particularities of the medieval context. As a result, this book will appeal to a general population of philosophers and historians of philosophy with an interest in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. (shrink)

Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988) have presented an influential argument to the effect that any viable connectionist account of human cognition must implement a language of thought. Their basic strategy is to argue that connectionist models that do not implement a language of thought fail to account for the systematic relations among propositional attitudes. Several critics of the LOT hypothesis have tried to pinpoint flaws in Fodor and Pylyshyn’s argument (Smolensky 1989; Clark, 1989; Chalmers, 1990; Braddon-Mitchell and (...) Fitzpatrick, 1990). One thing I will try to show is that the argument can be rescued from these criticisms. (Score: LOT 1, Visitors 0.) However, I agree that the argument fails, and I will provide a new account of how it goes wrong. (The score becomes tied.) Of course, the failure of Fodor and Pylyshyn’s argument does not mean that their conclusion is false. Consequently, some connectionist criticisms of Fodor and Pylyshyn’s article take the form of direct counterexamples to their conclusion (Smolensky 1989; van Gelder, 1990; Chalmers, 1990). I will argue, however, that Fodor and Pylyshyn’s conclusion survives confrontation with the alleged counterexamples. Finally, I provide an alternative argument that may succeed where Fodor and Pylyshyn’s fails. (Final Score: LOT 3, Visitors 1.). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a _prima facie_ tension between our commonsense conception of ourselves as thinkers and the connectionist programme for modelling cognitive processes. The language of thought hypothesis plays a pivotal role. The connectionist paradigm is opposed to the language of thought; and there is an argument for the language of thought that draws on features of the commonsense scheme of thoughts, concepts, and inference. Most of the paper (Sections (...) 3-7) is taken up with the argument for the language of thought hypothesis. The argument for an opposition between connectionism and the language of thought comes towards the end (Section 8), along with some discussion of the potential eliminativist consequences (Sections 9 and. (shrink)

John Damascene, one of the most productive Greek theologians of the Middle Byzantine era, also composed a treatise on the Trisagion hymn, or how it should be sung correctly and why; a text that has been little discussed in contemporary scholarship. The present paper provides an overview of the work – with special reference to the notion of identity in John’s description of the Trinitarian doctrine. It also examines the treatise especially in the context of anti-heretical polemics. The author argues (...) that John’s approach to the question of the correct way of singing the hymn is gentle: instead of using pejorative language, he even praises the object of his reproach. (shrink)

The view that infants possess a full-fledged propositional language-of-thought (LoT) is appealing, providing a unifying account for infants’ precocious reasoning skills in many domains. However, careful appraisal of empirical evidence suggests that there is still no convincing evidence that infants possess discrete representations of abstract relations, suggesting that infants’ LoT remains incomplete. Parallel arguments hold for perception.

Andrey Bely was an important member of the Russian symbolist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This essay presents a summary of the development of his ideas regarding the origins of image and symbol in poetic language. For Bely language organizes chaos. The poet finds images in the internal world of dreams. Music has an organizing power beyond that of language, which language attempts to imitate. Under the influence of Vladimir Solovyov he looked (...) to the union of Divine Wisdom or Sophia with the Eternal Logos as the principle behind symbolic images. Later, under the spell of Rudolf Steiner, he found the source of inspiration in the eternal dwelling of the Logos from which the human ego descends into flesh. The task of the poet is to recover the memory of the time before he left the realm of the Logos and to return to that realm by participating in Christ's ascent to the Cross. The autobiographical novel Kotik Letaev gives an account of recovering memory from before birth and the need to be joined with Christ crucified. (shrink)

Andrey Bely was an important member of the Russian symbolist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This essay presents a summary of the development of his ideas regarding the origins of image and symbol in poetic language. For Bely language organizes chaos. The poet finds images in the internal world of dreams. Music has an organizing power beyond that of language, which language attempts to imitate. Under the influence of Vladimir Solovyov he looked (...) to the union of Divine Wisdom or Sophia with the Eternal Logos as the principle behind symbolic images. Later, under the spell of Rudolf Steiner, he found the source of inspiration in the eternal dwelling of the Logos from which the human ego descends into flesh. The task of the poet is to recover the memory of the time before he left the realm of the Logos and to return to that realm by participating in Christ's ascent to the Cross. The autobiographical novel Kotik Letaev gives an account of recovering memory from before birth and the need to be joined with Christ crucified. (shrink)

The Language of Thought Hypothesis is often taken to have the fatal flaw that it generates an explanatory regress. The language of thought is invoked to explain certain features of natural language (e.g., that it is learned, understood, and is meaningful), but, according to the regress argument, the language of thought itself has these same features and hence no explanatory progress has been made. We argue that such arguments rely on the tacit assumption (...) that the entire motivation for the language of thought consists in explaining the explanandum that allegedly generates the regress. But this tacit assumption is simply false. The Language of Thought Hypothesis is a cogent view and one with considerable explanatory advantages. (shrink)

The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction, by SchneiderSusan. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. Pp. xii + 259.

Ernest Gellner's final book, first published in 1998, is a synoptic interpretation of the thought of Wittgenstein and Malinowski.

What makes Jewish thought Jewish? This book proceeds from a view of the Hebrew language as the holy tongue; such a view of Hebrew is, indeed, a distinctively Jewish view as determined by the Jewish religious tradition. Because language shapes thought and Hebrew is the foundational language of Jewish texts, this book explores the idea that Jewish thought is distinguished by concepts and categories rooted in Hebrew. Drawing on more than 300 Hebrew roots, the (...) author shows that Jewish thought employs Hebrew concepts and categories that are altogether distinct from those that characterize the Western speculative tradition. Among the key categories that shape Jewish thought are holiness, divinity, humanity, prayer, responsibility, exile, dwelling, gratitude, and language itself. While the Hebrew language is central to the investigation, the reader need not have a knowledge of Hebrew in order to follow it. Essential reading for students and scholars of Judaism, this book will also be of value to anyone interested in the categories of thinking that form humanity's ultimate concerns. (shrink)

This paper attempts to clarify and critically examine Fodor's language of thought (LOT) hypothesis, focusing on his contention that the systematicity of language use provides a solid ground for the LOT hypothesis. (edited).

A traditional view maintains that thought, while expressed in language, is non-linguistic in nature and occurs in non-linguistic beings as well. I assess this view against current theories of the evolutionary design of human grammar. I argue that even if some forms of human thought are shared with non-human animals, a residue remains that characterizes a unique way in which human thought is organized as a system. I explore the hypothesis that the cause of this difference (...) is a grammatical way of structuring semantic information, and I present evidence that the organization of grammar precisely reflects the organization of a specific mode of thought apparently distinctive of humans. Since there appears to be no known non-grammatical structuring principle for the relevant mode of thought, I suggest that grammar is that principle, with no independent ?Language of Thought? needed. (shrink)

There are towns in which language-of-thought (LoT) is the best game. But do we live in one? I go through three properties that characterize the LoT hypothesis: Discrete constituents, role-filler independence, and logical operators, and argue that in each case predictions from the LoT hypothesis are a poor fit to actual human cognition. As a hypothesis of what human cognition ought to be like, LoT departs from empirical reality.

In this chapter, I shall be examining an argument for the language of thought hypothesis.

Fodor advocates a view of cognitive processes as computations defined over the language of thought (or Mentalese). Even among those who endorse Mentalese, considerable controversy surrounds its representational format. What semantically relevant structure should scientific psychology attribute to Mentalese symbols? Researchers commonly emphasize logical structure, akin to that displayed by predicate calculus sentences. To counteract this tendency, I discuss computational models of navigation drawn from probabilistic robotics. These models involve computations defined over cognitive maps, which have geometric rather (...) than logical structure. They thereby demonstrate the possibility of rational cognitive processes in an exclusively non-logical representational medium. Furthermore, they offer much promise for the empirical study of animal navigation. (shrink)

We distinguish the question whether only human minds are equipped with a language of thought (LoT) from the question whether human minds employ a single uniquely human learning mechanism. Thus separated, our answer to both questions is negative. Even very simple minds employ a LoT. And the comparative data reviewed by Penn et al. actually suggest that there are many distinctively human learning mechanisms.

Mental representations remain the central posits of psychology after many decades of scrutiny. However, there is no consensus about the representational format(s) of biological cognition. This paper provides a survey of evidence from computational cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and social psychology, and concludes that one type of format that routinely crops up is the language-of-thought (LoT). We outline six core properties of LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate–argument structure; (iv) logical operators; (...) (v) inferential promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content. These properties cluster together throughout cognitive science. Bayesian computational modeling, compositional features of object perception, complex infant and animal reasoning, and automatic, intuitive cognition in adults all implicate LoT-like structures. Instead of regarding LoT as a relic of the previous century, researchers in cognitive science and philosophy-of-mind must take seriously the explanatory breadth of LoT-based architectures. We grant that the mind may harbor many formats and architectures, including iconic and associative structures as well as deep-neural-network-like architectures. However, as computational/representational approaches to the mind continue to advance, classical compositional symbolic structures – that is, LoTs – only prove more flexible and well-supported over time. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor's arguments for a language of thought are largely theoretical. Is there any empirical evidence that supports the existence of LOT? There is. Research on Global Aphasia supports the existence of LOT. In this paper, I discuss this evidence and why it supports Fodor's theory that there is a language of thought.

A science of prelinguistic infant cognition must take seriously the language-of-thought (LoT) hypothesis. I show how the LoT framework enables us to identify the representational and computational capacities of infant minds and the developmental factors that act on these capacities, and explain how Quilty-Dunn et al.'s take on LoT has important upshots for developmental theory-building.

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.