Reading

• [Required] Appendix P1 of Ludlow, Peter (1999) Semantics, Tense, and Time : An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press.
• Jackendoff, Ray S. (1990) Consciousness and the Computational Mind Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press.
• Carruthers (2002) "The cognitive functions of language" Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25:6. http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/people/faculty/pcarruthers/Cognitive-language.htm
• Chapter 6 "Do We Think in Mentalese? Remarks on Some Arguments of Peter Carruthers" in Fodor (1998) In Critical Condition : Polemical Essays On Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind Representation and Mind MIT Press.

Natural languages

• Natural language - the languages we use in ordinary social communication and which are learnt naturally - Cantonese, Japanese, German, etc.
• As opposed to artificial languages in computer programming and logic - propositional calculus, predicate logic, HTML, BASIC, C++, etc..

Position #1 : LOT is a natural language

• Introspective evidence - Subjectively, the experience of thinking is like internal speech, couched in natural languages. We think that the question "which language do you think in?" makes sense.

Position #2 : LOT is not a natural language?

• Mental images - Many people claim that they sometimes think with mental images. It is true that mental images might still be made up of some kind of mental language, but probably not any natural language.
• Fine-grained perceptual concepts - We can have thoughts about certain perceptual magnitudes which we do not know how to express in natural languages ("the color of the wall is *that* shade of blue"). Think of knowing by sight the colour or size of an object.
• Pre-linguistic infants - If we grant that pre-linguistic infants (or for that matter, animals) can think, then it is likely that there is some thinking that does not rely on natural language. How can we learn a NL if there is no thinking without NL?
• Ambiguity - Sentences can be (syntactically, lexically, referentially) ambiguous when the thoughts expressed by the sentences are not.
  - "We shall discuss violence on TV."
  - Applies to imagery as well. Think about Wittgenstein's old man example in PI:

  I see a picture; it represents an old man walking up a steep path leaning on a stick. - How? Might it not have looked just the same had he been sliding downhill in the position?

How to reconcile position #2 with the introspective evidence

• Our innate language faculty ("I-language" according to Chomsky) contains two and only two syntactic levels of representation, Logical Form (LF) and Phonological Form (PF). LF interfaces with the conceptual- intention system. PF interfaces with the articulatory-perceptual system (speech).

  example (Jackendoff Foundations of Language)

• Conscious thinking is associated with mental imagery. We have visual imagery, motor imagery, etc. The experience of talking to oneself is the result of our thoughts being expressed in verbal imagery, the contents of the imagery being determined by the appropriate PF. (See Jackendoff)

  The intermediate level theory of awareness

• In the case of deaf people this might take the form of sign language imagery.
• So we are never directly conscious of our thoughts but indirectly through their expression in various forms of imagery.
• Syntactic ambiguity is resolved at the level of LF.

  

Are thoughts composed of LF representations?

Relevant issues :

• What about animal cognition? Do animals have LF?
• Thoughts can enter into reasoning and stand in logical relations to each other. What about LF?
• What about perceptual concepts?