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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper takes the philosophical position that language is not necessary for thinking. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVThoLan.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
of thinking-language-asks if language is necessary for thinking and argues that it is not. Discussion The first thing that might occur to someone considering this problem is that its impossible
to think without using language; that is, our instinct is to describe things in words, either by writing them down or "thinking out loud." But a moments reflection reveals that
we have other ways of communicating, including pictures and music. Its hard to imagine expressing thoughts in pure music, but not so very difficult to consider the idea of expressing
thought in pictures. Indeed, we are visual creatures and tend to form pictures in our minds of things we have yet to see in life. Therefore, if we can see
what were thinking about in our "minds eye," there may be no need of language to describe it. It would, of course, be impossible to communicate our thoughts to others
without either reproducing the pictures or using language; the first would be incredibly cumbersome so we are left with the conclusion that when we wish to communicate easily, we use
language. But communication with others is not what we are considering here. We only want to ask if its possible to have thought without language, and the answer would appear
to be "yes." Problems arise however when we try to make certain that we are expressing meanings unambiguously; Quine among others argues that "meaning is highly indeterminate. Quine is not
alone in the view that linguistic and mental meaning are best seen not as out there to be discovered, but rather as partly constituted or constructed by our practices of
interpreting and translating" (Crimmins, 1998). If we create the meaning of linguistic terms ourselves, then there can be no unanimity, which argues against language as a significant tool for explaining
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