Theo Todman's Book Collection (Book-Paper Abstracts)

Cover Blurb

1. To what extent, if at all, is language involved in thinking? Do we think in natural language? Or is language but an input and output module for central cognition – a mere communication device, in fact? Peter Carruthers here makes a fresh and provocative contribution to an ancient debate, and claims, in contrast to much recent work in philosophy and cognitive science, that the independence of thought from language is by no means clear-cut. He argues against the communicative conception of language put forward by thinkers such as Fodor and Pinker, and espouses the cognitive conception of language proposed by, for example, Wittgenstein and Dennett; but he refuses to take on board the Whorfian linguistic relativism so often seen as a natural corollary of this position. Instead he argues persuasively for the view that the cognitive conception of language can be deployed in combination with a modularist and nativist view of language and the mind. The book defends a new theory of consciousness which is put to work in the final chapter to argue for the necessary involvement of natural language in human conscious thinking.
2. Language, Thought and Consciousness will form essential reading for all those interested in the nature and significance of natural language, whether they come from philosophy, psychology, or linguistics.
3. ‘If Carruthers is right, the study of language is – in a very real sense – the study of thought. This has two enormously important consequences. First, it puts linguistics centre stage in cognitive science; second it sanctions the linguistic turn which has so much dominated twentieth-century philosophy. Carruthers’ thesis is thus a very significant one. What impresses most, though, is not the significance of the thesis but its defence. Language, thought and consciousness is a book crammed with penetrating observations and good arguments. Few readers will fail to learn something from it, and none will be disappointed.’
   … Times Literary Supplement