Language and Thought
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In Alfred North Whitehead's phrase, the whole of the European philosophical tradition is but "a series of footnotes to Plato." It is no surprise, then, that one can find the seeds of the discourse regarding the relationship of thought to language in Plato's works. One can find countless examples in the Socratic dialogues in which Socrates initiates discussion of a philosophical concept by asking first about the meaning of the concept itself. The question "What do we mean by justice?" is the initial attempt to distinguish words from the ideas behind them, and the process of philosophical inquiry is a rhetorical exercise. Therefore, the nature of the relationship of word to thought must first be understood as a relationship of word to other words. If words can be directly yoked to ideas, the implication is that people can use words as a tool to understand the foundational aspects of humanity: desires, needs, wants, emotions. If words and ideas are necessarily yoked, then language and thought have a profound connection. Language can be used to mold thought, language can be used to describe thought accurately, and language can be trusted as a reliable map of the human psyche. This position, taken to its extreme, was expressed by the French grammarian Condillac in the preface to his Grammaire: I regard grammar as the first part of the art of thought. In order to discover the principles of language it is necessary to observe how we think. It is necessary
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language Shakespeare uses, or that anyone uses, is a rickety vehicle for carrying thought. It is reliable as far as common discourse is concerned, but, as a tool to inquire into final and conclusive issues, it is completely insufficient. Language is usable, though, if one redefines thought. The process of debate carries within it the implication that the actual discourse is the tool by which an answer is arrived at. One debater postulates a premise, the other debater refutes it, and then, point by point, the two construct an argument that leads to a conclusion. The conclusion is assumed to be the product of the argument. Socrates, however, holds that the process of learning is not a process of acquiring concepts through abstraction or logical thought. He famously defined learning as "recollection." One may, on the level of mere language, come to an understanding of something that was not previously considered, but, in a deeper sense, the process of thought is merely reminding people of what they already know. Language, then, is a tool for reminding them of what they know, not for developing "new" thought.
The modern philosophical developments regarding the nature of thought and language assume that thought can be transmitted d
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Approximate Word count = 3218
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)
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