“What is the relation between thought and language? Can one think without speaking? The way to answer this is not to introspect and wait for an occurrence of speechless thought as an astronomer might wait to observe an eclipse. It is rather to consider the different types of thing we call ‘thinking’, the different types of occasion in which the verb ‘to think’ is used. The verb is sometimes used to mark a difference between two types of speaking: speech with thought, and unthinking speech. It is clear enough in this case that thought is not something that can occur without speech, any more than the expression of a piece of music could occur without the music. But we can quite often say of someone that he had the thought that p, without our meaning that he said ‘p’ aloud or to himself. Wittgenstein gives an example: ‘I might act in such a way while taking various measurements that an onlooker would say I had — without words — thought: If two magnitudes are equal to a third, they are equal to one another’. However, it can be said of me that I thought something without words only where the thought is one which I could have expressed in some way. Some thoughts — e.g. about God and the creation of the world — seem to be incapable of expression except in language: one cannot take seriously the testimony of a deaf-mute to the effect that he had such thoughts before he learnt language. There are thoughts which only a language-user can have, as well as thoughts which animals can share: a dog can believe that his master is at the door, but not that his master will come the day after tomorrow, because he cannot master the complicated language in which alone such a hope can be expressed.” — Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:54:10 +0000
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