Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Language of Thought

(Text as at 06/03/2018 21:21:36)

(For earlier versions of this Note, see the table at the end)

Plug Note₁

• Jerry Fodor’s Language of Thought (LOT) hypothesis features heavily in debates in the philosophy of mind – particularly in the debates between connectionists and computationalists.
• See "Aydede (Murat) - The Language of Thought Hypothesis" for an overview.
• My interest in it within the sphere of personal identity arises because of the alleged essentiality of language for personhood (see "Dennett (Daniel) - Conditions of Personhood"). As such, all non-human animals² are ruled out – because even if certain Great Apes can be taught sign-language, this is not natural to them in the way language is to human beings, and it implies that an individual can be taught to be a person³.
• It is also often alleged (eg. by Donald Davidson) that animals cannot even think in the absence of language, because thinking requires concepts⁴, and concepts are only expressed in language.
• These (to me) unwanted conclusions might disappear if all animals whose minds appear to have intensional states should have a language of thought.
• I don’t know whether Fodor cares about animals in this context, or whether his theory was designed strictly with human beings⁵ in mind.
• I like the idea that a LOT – which initially only helps an individual – might explain how spoken language arose amongst human beings – given that a spoken language requires a pair of speakers before it becomes useful (even if grunts and other vocalisations don’t). If a language of thought spilled out into vocalisation, even though individual vocalisations might be initially mutually-unintelligible, a conventional speech (constrained only by universal grammar) might naturally arise with the co-operative behaviour germane to social animals.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read₆, include₇ the following:-
  1. "Fodor (Jerry) - Psychosemantics", Fodor₈
• A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
  1. "Aydede (Murat) - The Language of Thought Hypothesis", Aydede
  2. "Carruthers (Peter) & Boucher (Jill) - Language and Thought", Carruthers & Boucher
  3. "Chomsky (Noam) - Biolinguistic Explorations: Design, Development, Evolution", Chomsky
  4. "Davies (Martin) - Concepts, Connectionism, and the Language of Thought", Davies
  5. "DeWitt (Richard) - Vagueness, Semantics, and the Language of Thought (Review of Jerry Fodor, George Miller, & D. Terence Langendoen - Language of Thought )", DeWitt
  6. "Fodor (Jerry) - The Language of Thought", Fodor
  7. "Horgan (Terence) & Tienson (John) - Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought, and What That Means", Horgan & Tienson
  8. "Kaye (Larry) - The Language of Thought", Kaye, and
     → "Kaye (Larry) - The Language of Thought - Annotated Bibliography"
  9. "Laurence (Stephen) & Margolis (Eric) - Regress Arguments Against the Language of Thought", Laurence & Margolis
  10. "Lycan (William) - The 'Language of Thought' Hypothesis - Introduction", Lycan
  11. "Pollock (John L.) - The Language of Thought", Pollock
  12. "Pollock (John L.) - Understanding the Language of Thought", Pollock
  13. "Rey (Georges) - Sensations in a Language of Thought", Rey
  14. "Rowlands (Mark) - Connectionism and the Language of Thought", Rowlands
  15. "Smolensky (Paul) - Connectionism, Constituency and the Language of Thought", Smolensky
  16. "Viger (Christopher) - Learning to Think: A Response to the Language of Thought Argument for Innateness", Viger
• A few connections to be followed up:-
  1. "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - When Do Persons Begin and End?", Baker
  2. Baker - The Human Animal: Big-Tent Metaphysics⁹
  3. Brandom - Toward a Normative Pragmatics (Introduction)¹⁰
  4. Daniel Dennett – Conditions of Personhood¹¹
  5. Implicit knowledge and language learning¹²
  6. Jen_071022 (Dennett)¹³
  7. Jen_080204 (Brandom, Chisholm, Baillie)¹⁴
• This is mostly a place-holder¹⁵.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 1:

• A number of my philosophical Notes are “promissory notes” currently only listing the books and papers (if any) I possess on the topic concerned.
• I’ve decided to add some text – whether by way of motivation, or something more substantive – for all these identified topics related to my Thesis.
• As I want to do this fairly quickly, the text may be confused or show surprising ignorance.
• The reader (if such exists) will have to bear with me, and display the principle of charity while this footnote exists.

Footnote 6:

• Frequently I’ll have made copious marginal annotations, and sometimes have written up a review-note.
• In the former case, I intend to transfer the annotations into electronic form as soon as I can find the time.
• In the latter case, I will have remarked on the fact against the citation, and will integrate the comments into this Note in due course.
• My intention is to incorporate into these Notes comments on material I’ve already read rather than engage with unread material at this stage.

Footnote 7:

• I may have read others in between updates of this Note – in which case they will be marked as such in the “References and Reading List” below.
• Papers or Books partially read have a rough %age based on the time spent versus the time expected.

Footnote 8:

• Especially "Fodor (Jerry) - Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought".

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Printable Versions:

• Follow (this link) for level 0 (with reading list), and
• Follow (this link) for level 0.

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Previous Version of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
04/07/2014 22:46:34	1705	Language of Thought

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/03/2018 21:21:36	Language of Thought	Person

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Summary of Note Links from this Page

Animals	Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Baker - The Human Animal: Big-Tent Metaphysics	Brandom - Toward a Normative Pragmatics (Introduction)	Concepts
Daniel Dennett – Conditions of Personhood	Human Beings	Implicit knowledge and language learning	Jen_071022 (Dennett)	Jen_080204 (Brandom, Chisholm, Baillie)
Person

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	When Do Persons Begin and End?	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Language of Thought	Paper		Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Aydede (Murat)	The Language of Thought Hypothesis	Paper - Cited	Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2010	5%
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	When Do Persons Begin and End?	Paper - Cited	Distinguished Faculty Lecture, December 5, 2005	Yes
Carruthers (Peter) & Boucher (Jill)	Language and Thought	Book - Cited	Carruthers (Peter) & Boucher (Jill) - Language and Thought	No
Chomsky (Noam)	Biolinguistic Explorations: Design, Development, Evolution	Paper - Cited	International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 15, Issue 1 March 2007 , pages 1 - 21	No
Davies (Martin)	Concepts, Connectionism, and the Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	In W. Ramsey, S. Stich and D. Rumelhart (eds), Philosophy and Connectionist Theory (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991), 229-257	No
Davies (Martin)	Language, thought, and the language of thought: Aunty's own argument revisited	Paper - By Subtopic	Carruthers & Boucher - Language and Thought, 1998	No
Dennett (Daniel)	Brainstorms - Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	43%
Dennett (Daniel)	Conditions of Personhood	Paper - Cited	Dennett - Brainstorms - Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Chapter 14	Yes
DeWitt (Richard)	Vagueness, Semantics, and the Language of Thought (Review of Jerry Fodor, George Miller, & D. Terence Langendoen - Language of Thought )	Paper - Cited	Psyche, 1(1), December 1993	No
Fodor (Jerry)	Psychosemantics	Book - Cited	Fodor (Jerry) - Psychosemantics	Yes
Fodor (Jerry)	The Language of Thought	Book - Cited	Fodor (Jerry) - The Language of Thought	2%
Fodor (Jerry)	The Language of Thought	Paper - By Subtopic	Fodor - The Language of Thought	4%
Fodor (Jerry)	Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	Fodor - Psychosemantics, Appendix	Yes
Horgan (Terence) & Tienson (John)	Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	23%
Horgan (Terence) & Tienson (John)	Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought, and What That Means	Paper - Cited	Horgan & Tienson - Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology, 1996, Chapter 5	29%
Jackendoff (Ray)	What is a Concept, That a Person May Grasp It?	Paper - By Subtopic	Margolis & Laurence - Concepts - Core Readings	No
Kaye (Larry)	The Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind	No
Kaye (Larry)	The Language of Thought - Annotated Bibliography	Paper - Cited	Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind	No
Laurence (Stephen) & Margolis (Eric)	Regress Arguments Against the Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	Analysis 57.1, Jan 1997, p60, 7p	No
Lycan (William)	Mind and Cognition - An Anthology	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	1%
Lycan (William)	The 'Language of Thought' Hypothesis - Introduction	Paper - Cited	Lycan - Mind and Cognition - An Anthology, 1999	No
MacDonald (Cynthia) & MacDonald (Graham), Eds.	Connectionism: Debates in Psychological Explanation - Vol. 2	Book - By Subtopic	MacDonald (Cynthia) & MacDonald (Graham), Eds. - Connectionism: Debates in Psychological Explanation - Vol. 2	4%
Margolis (Eric) & Laurence (Stephen), Eds.	Concepts - Core Readings	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Margolis (Eric) & Laurence (Stephen), Eds. - Concepts - Core Readings	No
Noe (Alva)	Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Noe (Alva) - Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness	23%
Noe (Alva)	Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness	Paper - By Subtopic	Noe (Alva) - Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness	34%
Pollock (John L.)	How to Build a Person: A Prolegomenon	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	6%
Pollock (John L.)	Interest-Driven Reasoning	Paper - By Subtopic	Synthese, Vol. 74, No. 3, Internalism (Mar., 1988), pp. 369-390	No
Pollock (John L.)	The Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	Pollock - How to Build a Person, Chapter 5	No
Pollock (John L.)	Understanding the Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1/2, Symposium on Thought and Reference (Jan. - Feb., 1990), pp. 95-120	No
Rey (Georges)	Sensations in a Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Issues, Vol. 1, Consciousness, 1991, pp. 73-112	No
Rowlands (Mark)	Connectionism and the Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 45, No. 2, Jun., 1994, pp. 485-503	17%
Searle (John)	The Rediscovery of the Mind	Book - By Subtopic	Searle (John) - The Rediscovery of the Mind	23%
Smolensky (Paul)	Connectionism, Constituency and the Language of Thought	Paper - Cited	MacDonald (Cynthia) & MacDonald (Graham) - Connectionism: Debates in Psychological Explanation - Vol. 2	No
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Language of Thought	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Viger (Christopher)	Learning to Think: A Response to the Language of Thought Argument for Innateness	Paper - Cited	Mind and Language, Volume 20, Number 3, June 2005, pp. 313-325(13)	No

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