"My view is that a language cannot be learned unless we already know one. The language of thought is known but not learned, that is, it is innate."(Jerry Fodor)
"The mind has a language of its own: Mentalese" (Steven Pinker).
The Universal Language of Thought
Fodor's Hypothesis
In 1975, Jerry Alan Fodor, in his work "Language of Thought", launched the hypothesis of the existence of a mental language, internal, innate and universal, common to the entire human species: the language of thought or Mentalese.
The characteristics of this hypothetical language would be, according to Fodor, the following:
It is a language that exists at the cognitive level, at the level of thoughts, ideas and concepts, but applies only to thoughts that have propositional content, so it does not describe everything that passes through the mind.
It is a computational language, based on a representational system in which a correspondence is established between mental content and its form of representation, which takes place in the mind-brain. The mind-brain pair constitutes a unit. It is a physical entity with a computational-representational mechanism. The computational system requires a representational system. "No computation without representation" is the slogan of his book. Mental processes are computational processes based on representation.
In this sense, it is a language analogous to the machine language of computers. The mind-brain is a kind of computer computing over representations by virtue of their combinatorial properties or possibilities. This is also the cognitive view of artificial intelligence.
Its basic linguistic elements (tokens or symbols), which have representational content, are mental contents corresponding to simple concepts. By combining these simple concepts, by means of logical rules, more complex concepts are formed.
Mental states possess semantics, intentionality and causal capacities. To think something is to have the "mental" expression of that proposition written down in some way somewhere (or working area) in the mind-brain.
Fodor was one of the first philosophers to highlight the analogy between the human mind and the computer in advocating the computational theory of mind: the human mind can be considered a computer, since it contains internal symbols and an internal logic.
For Fodor, the goal of psychology should be to discover the "program" that constitutes the mind, not the physical aspects that enable that program to be executed. To discover the mind is to discover the software of the mind.
Fundamentals
The language of thought hypothesis is supported by 5 theses:
Representational realism.
Thought possesses a real system of representation, i.e., all mental content is expressed by explicit elements (tokens).
Linguistic thinking.
The representational system underlying thought is of a linguistic type, that is, it consists of syntactic elements (tokens) capable of expressing propositional meanings by means of the semantic compositionality of these syntactic elements.
Distinctiveness.
The language of thought is distinct from all natural spoken languages.
Innatism.
The language of thought is innate to all human beings and is unique: there is only one mental language for the entire human species. Fodor, defends a radical conceptual innatism: all concepts are innate.
Semantic completeness.
The language of thought is semantically complete, that is, it contains all the resources necessary for human beings to express or grasp any idea or concept.
The hypothesis of linguistic thought has the following characteristics:
Productivity.
Humans can produce a potentially infinite number of semantically distinct thoughts. The most obvious and simplest explanation is to assume that thought consists of linguistic elements (tokens) that combine to produce such an infinite variety of thoughts.
Systematicity.
There is a whole system of linguistic relations between the kinds of thoughts we are capable of producing. These relations are basically of a combinatorial type. For example, if we think "John loves Mary", we can also think "Mary loves John". And if we think "green circle" and "red square", we can also think "red circle and green square".
Semantic compositionality.
The meaning of a thought is based on the meaning of its component elements.
Simplicity-complexity.
Many thoughts are extremely complex semantically, and language is the only means we have for constructing them by combining simpler thoughts.
Introspection.
We are aware that we have thoughts that accompany us when we speak or when we pick up thoughts from others.
Relationship inner world - outer world (the methodological argument).
There is a causal relationship between inner world and outer world, between our thoughts and our actions. The fact that these actions occur in sequence and that they are of a rational type constitute arguments in favor of the existence of an inner language and of a logic associated with that language.
Therefore, if thought is of a linguistic type, there must be an internal language, a metalanguage, a mother language, a language of languages responsible for thought.
Pinker's position
Steven Pinker, in his 1994 book "The Language Instinct", includes a chapter (the third) devoted to Mentalese. He defines Mentalese as "The hypothetical language of thought, or representation of concepts and propositions in the brain in which ideas are formulated, including the meanings of words and concepts" [Pinker, 2009].
Almost 20 years after the hypothesis launched by Fodor, Pinker has reinforced and popularized this concept. His main ideas are:
Mentalese is an internal lingua franca, a cognitive component of the brain, innate, autonomous and genetically determined as a result of evolution. Language is instinct, language acquisition is innate, just as birds build their nests and spiders build their webs.
Thought is independent of spoken language. We think, not in a concrete natural language, but in a metalanguage that precedes all language (which is at a higher abstract level). This metalanguage or language of thought is Mentalese, from which particular languages arise. Mentalese is the foundation of all thought and of all language.
There must be a two-way translation between natural language and Mentalese for thought to take place. Mentalese is a silent (internal) medium of the brain, from which thoughts are generated that we "dress up" in words to communicate externally. To speak is to translate Mentalese into natural language, and to understand is to translate natural language into Mentalese. Mentalese is "the port of entry to the mind". Learning a language consists of translating this language into innate Mentalese.
Mentalese is a thought representation language analogous to a machine language of a computer. The Turing machine is one kind of Mentalese, although it is not the only possible kind. (In general, proponents of the Mentalese hypothesis do not believe that Mentalese is like a Turing machine).
Rejects the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (language influences or determines thought), since external language is merely the manifestation of internal language (Mentalese). Mentalese is an innate component of the human species that is not affected by the process of learning a language or using it. Language does not condition thought because natural language is superficial and thought is deep and of higher rank. If thought were natural language, then the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would obviously be true.
Pinker adduces 5 reasons for holding that thought cannot be natural language:
The difficulty of expressing some ideas with words that do not exactly fit what one wishes to express.
We remember the essence of what we have heard, but not the exact words.
If thought depended on words, no new words could be coined.
Without natural language one has thoughts (e.g., deaf people and babies), even thoughts of an abstract kind.
Translation from one natural language to another would be impossible without Mentalese, the common and universal language of reference.
Pinker also provides 5 arguments in favor of Mentalese, citing existing problems in natural language:
Ambiguity.
Natural language is often ambiguous. But our understanding is not. Therefore, the instrument of our understanding (Mentalese) cannot be natural language.
Lack of explicit logic.
Logical relationships in natural language are often not explicit. This is related to the famous frame problem. [see Applications - Artificial Intelligence - The Frame Problem].
The co-reference problem.
In natural language it is not explicit how pronouns refer to their antecedents.
Deixis.
In linguistics, deixis refers to pointing to elements of discourse, such that often the context determines the meaning.
Deixis is the part of semantics and pragmatics that is concerned with words that serve to indicate other elements. Words such as tú, hoy, aquí, esto, are deictic expressions, which serve to indicate people, situations, places, etc.
Synonymy.
Different words mean the same thing. Then there must be "something else" that is beyond those words.
Mentalese vs. Universal Grammar
Universal Grammar (GU) is a linguistic theory postulated by Chomsky, which holds that there are universal grammatical principles innate in all human beings and manifest in all natural languages.
For the ancient grammar of Port-Royal (1660), called "general grammar," the deep structure of all languages is the same, for it is a reflection of the forms of thought and of certain fundamental properties of the mind.
Also the linguist and neurologist Eric Lenneber had developed, before Chomsky, a universalist theory of language, arguing that all languages share the same underlying structure, that linguistic structures are largely innate, and that what is perceived as differences between specific languages is merely a superficial phenomenon that does not affect the cognitive process, which is universal in all human beings.
If we compare Chomsky's GU with Mentalese:
For Chomsky, GU is innate, but not absolute. It has an adaptive function to adjust to the conditions of the grammar of a particular language. GU helps to learn natural language.
For Pinker, Mentalese enables us to learn and behave intelligently. Mentalese is a complete mechanism and not merely a template or schema used in learning, like GU. Without Mentalese, the inherited GU could not be adapted to a natural linguistic environment. Pinker believes in the existence of GU underlying all languages, but goes beyond Chomsky on the issue of natural language learning.
Fodor's statement "It takes a language to learn a language" (referring to Mentalese), has been replaced in his later writings by "It takes a language acquisition device to learn a language". This is precisely GU, which would imply that natural language learning could be explained without the Mentalese hypothesis.
Some opinions and criticisms
Since its formulation by Fodor, the language-of-thought hypothesis (Mentalese) has provoked passionate debates among philosophers and cognitive scientists. The main objections are:
Brain materialism. There are no mental states; they are just brain states.
It is questioned that the system of representation used by the mind is a formal language of propositional type, with its syntax and semantics.
The recursive argument. If the meaning of a natural language is explained in terms of another language (Mentalese), then the meaning of Mentalese must be obtained from another, more internal language, and so on ad infinitum, or else arrive at a first cause, a basic language or a homunculus. According to Daniel Dennet, this recursive process is not infinite, since one arrives at a basic level that does not require interpretation.
The problem of semantics. The Mentalese hypothesis leaves unanswered the key question of semantics, i.e., the issue of how mental expressions acquire meaning.
Here are some views:
St. Augustine regarded language as mere labels applied to existing concepts.
For Kant, language is only one of the tools used by human beings to experience the world.
For behavioral psychologists, language and thought are the same thing. Thought is entirely linguistic. There is no such thing as "nonverbal" thinking.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, in his work "Language, Thought and Reality", states that "thoughts precede and are independent of words". Thus, with this phrase, Whorf implicitly anticipated the concept of Mentalese, establishing the distinction between language and thought.
Paul Churchland denies that mental states exist. It is his "eliminative materialism": psychological states correspond one to one with neurophysiological states of the brain.
For John Searle, advocate of brain materialism (or biological naturalism), mental states correspond to brain states. Therefore, there is no representationalism of mind. Brain states are high-level and low-level. The high-level ones are those that cause external actions. Low-level ones correspond to intentional (internal) behavior.
Alan T. Gaynor draws a physical-mental analogy between Mentales and the ether, the hypothetical absolute medium over which light propagates:
light
=
thinking
ether
Mentalese
The famous Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 proved that the hypothetical existence of the ether was not valid. Einstein, in his theory of special relativity, with his postulate of invariance of the speed of light, did not require the existence of the ether either. Gaynor believes that the same thing may happen with Mentalese, that the hypothesis of its existence is not necessary.
In any case, the ether theme has been revived in recent years in an attempt to explain dark matter and dark energy in the universe. The "new" aether (or Akasha) is conceived as a kind of space-matter resident at a deep level from which all observable and objective phenomena emerge. So the comparison with the ether is apt in the sense that both (ether and Mentalese) reside at a deep level (physical and mental, respectively).
Daniel Dennett defends the Mentalese hypothesis. He calls it "mental writing." In describing Mentalese, he claims that thought can be thought of as a kind of syntactic engine that preserves semantic properties.
For Derek Bickerton, there is a universal code, principles common to all languages, so that we can say that we have a single language. Language is not only a means of communication, but a system of representation of the mind and the key to cognitive processes, intelligence and consciousness. The main characteristic of human language is the ability to relate objects and properties.
For George Steiner, every act of human communication involves a kind of translation. Even the reading of a text implies translation, because the meaning does not reside in the text, but is generated by a process of interpretation, which is linked to the socio-cultural context.
For the linguist Anna Wierzbicka, Mentalese corresponds to semantic primes, a set of universal concepts shared by all natural languages. This has provoked a double controversy: 1) the thought language hypothesis itself; 2) for the choice of about 100 basic concepts (such as "self", "think", "near", "within", etc.). [see Comparisons - MENTAL vs. Universal Semantic Primitives in Natural Language].
Propositional vs. imaginal
In cognitive psychology it is admitted that mental functions (including thinking) have a representational substrate. Two basic alternatives, in principle opposed, have been proposed: the propositional and the imaginal conception. In reality it is a dialectical confrontation, once again, of the two modes of consciousness: left hemisphere (LH) and right hemisphere (RH), between the external world (objective, rational and analytical) and the internal world (subjective, intuitive and synthetic).
The propositional conception.
It proposes that mental representation has the form of a proposition. Propositions have a linear, discrete, analytical character. The mind would be the metaphor of a computer: a serial processor of symbols.
The imaginal conception.
It proposes that mental representation is based on images, which play the main role in cognitive activity. Images have a continuous, synthetic, analogical character, and are processed in parallel.
There is a third alternative, proposed by the connectionist school, and that is distributed representation: mental content cannot be localized because it is not stored as such, but is the result of the functioning of a network of connections.
The advantage of propositions is that they are very versatile. The disadvantage is that they require a large number of relations and inferences, many of them trivial. And there are mental phenomena such as qualia (the subjective qualities of conscious experiences, e.g., smelling a rose, feeling the color red, experiencing pain, etc.) that cannot be represented by the propositional resource. Propositional formalisms are intrinsically solipsistic, since they refer only to themselves.
Propositionalists postulate a Mentalese based on propositions. Mental states would be syntactic structures that encode meaning. Thought would consist of operations (computations) between syntactic representations, a process similar to the state transitions of a Turing machine.
The advantage of images is that they describe spatial relationships in a synthetic way. The disadvantage is that they do not allow formal or deductive computational processes. Because images belong to the subjective world and are more difficult to handle, attempts have been made to ignore them or at least to consider whether they are dispensable in the elaboration of a theory of cognition.
The topic of mental imagery has a long history in psychology. The first paradigm in psychology was of the mentalistic type and advocated mental imagery. Later, the possibility of the existence of thoughts without images was raised. With the arrival of the behaviorist school, the subject of mental images was absolutely avoided, as they were considered internal, subjective, unobservable and impossible to approach scientifically. Currently there is great interest in the subject of mental images, one of the questions raised being the nature of the images (schematic, structural, symbolic or abstract).
But the imaginal world is richer than the propositional one, since it is an inner, flexible and creative world. Mental imagery is a cognitive activity that allows us to perceive (internally) images of real objects that are not present. And the possibility of generating or creating images of imaginary entities (monsters, abstract figures, illogical or disproportionate relationships, etc.). As examples in the art world, we can cite Dali and Magritte.
Imagination is more powerful than thought. Many scientific discoveries have come from imaginative intuitions. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encompasses the world" (Einstein).
Here are some views concerning the propositional-imaginal dialectic of mental representation:
Fodor believes that many lexical items in Mentalese can be like images. Attempting to reconcile propositional items and mental images, he introduced the notion of "mental image under description". But he insists that, in general, a pure system of images are not suitable for expressing propositions. In particular they do not allow to capture what is implied in judgments (propositions that have a truth value).
Pinker gives much relevance to the issue of mental imagery in thinking. "I don't think we think in a language or we think in words. I think we think in visual images, we think in auditory images, and we think in abstract propositions about truth."
For Antonio Damasio, images play a major role in the mind. Images are mental patterns or qualia, which are of a unified type and produce sensation-emotion. Images are manipulated in a process we call "thought". Consciousness is an integrated sensation-perception of images.
Gilbert Ryle, in his work "The Concept of the Mental" (1949) [2005], denies that mental images exist. A leading member of analytic philosophy, he argues that the human mind cannot explain the universe, that metaphysics is impossible. Philosophy must deal exclusively with logical and methodological issues. Critical of Cartesian dualism, he was the coiner of the phrase "the ghost in the machine", later popularized by Arthur Koestler in his work of the same title (1968).
For Bergson, the image is situated halfway between the external object and its internal representation.
For Bolzano, only propositions containing finite ideas are accessible to the human mind.
For Sartre, the image is not a support of thought; it is part of the imagination.
For Piaget, the image is only a symbol, not knowledge.
For Jung, founder of analytical psychology, the psyche is constituted by the personal conscious, the individual unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The unconscious manifests itself as archetypes, which are primordial images of a symbolic type, and which precede the ideas that articulate rational discourse. Archetypes have a dual or bipolar structure, as they connect the conscious with the unconscious. Jung developed the method of "active imagination" to establish, in the waking state, an active dialogue with the unconscious in an attempt to grasp its meaning.
For James Hillman −Jungian and creator of archetypal psychology− psychological activities belong to the realm of images. Contrary to Jung, he uses a phenomenological rather than an analytical approach. To understand the psyche, images must be explored and described, not explained or rationalized. Images create meaning when they are contemplated (not analyzed). The source of true knowledge is not the rational, but the world of images in which the "I" dwells. Hillman "reinvented" psychology on the basis of the soul. The soul manifests itself in imagination, fantasy, myth and metaphor. His two landmark works of his thought are "Re-imagining Psychology" (1975) [1999] and "The Soul Code" (1997) [1998].
Antecedents
Aristotle
Through Boethius we learn about Aristotelian theories of language and logic. Aristotle intuited the existence of a mental language (internal), related to the spoken language (external):
He divides language into spoken, written and mental.
Distinguishes between mental world and extramental world.
He calls the elements of mental language "intentions".
He calls "imposition" what makes a sound voice have meaning. Each imposition is directly related to an intention.
There are first and second impositions (and intentions). The former refer to extramental realities (e.g., "table"). The second ones refer to mental realities. Logic and grammar are concerned with second intentions and are metalinguistic in nature.
St. Augustine
St. Augustine also addressed the issue of the existence of a mental language, which he conceives as a unique language, common to all human beings:
He distinguishes two levels or planes in language: the interior and the exterior, both constituted by words.
The relationship between the two levels (or planes) of language is semiotic: the outer words are signs of the inner words.
He defines "linguistic sign" as the intrinsic union between exterior word (sound or phonic reality), and interior word (signification). In the significance resides the value and strength of the linguistic sign.
The words belonging to the inner plane are common to all languages and are independent of their verbal translation into a particular language.
Distinguish between:
Res. The external reality, which is independent of the ability to be named.
Verbum. External language, which is independent of its ability to name things.
Dictium. It is the Verbum used to refer to external reality.
Dicible. It is the inner language, the mental language.
Ockham
William of Ockham was the first philosopher in history to describe mental language at some level of detail, using grammatical and semantic categories:
In his work "Summa Logicae", he divides language −as did Aristotle− into spoken, written and mental, the written being dependent on the spoken and the spoken dependent on the mental.
Mental language is the most basic and primitive language. It is a canonical, fundamental, essential language. It is made up of units called "concepts" or "mental terms", which are "natural signs", have a meaning and refer to existing things. Mental terms represent a plurality of particulars, are universal by nature and are common to all human beings. In mental terms there is no polysemy or synonymy, as is the case with spoken and written language.
Spoken and written language is made up of "linguistic terms". The meaning of linguistic terms derives precisely from the significance of mental terms.
While the meaning of linguistic terms is purely conventional (and can be changed by mutual agreement), the meaning of mental terms is established by nature and cannot be changed at will. Mental language is a natural language. While the meanings of mental terms are acquired by natural processes, the meanings of linguistic terms are derived from mental terms and are established by convention.
Mental terms can be combined to form mental propositions, which are syntactically structured in the same way that linguistic terms are combined into audible or visible sentences.
The meaning of a mental proposition depends directly on the meaning of its constituent mental terms, as with the expressions of spoken and written language.
Although Ockham rejected that universals are real, he admitted the existence of universal concepts (or mental terms), which have a corresponding linguistic term in spoken and written language. He emphasized that universal concepts are singular entities; they are universal in the sense that they are "predicates of many".
He divides linguistic terms into:
Categorematic. They correspond to nouns, adjectives and verbs. They refer to things in the world, to reality. For example, "man" and "white".
Syncategorematic. They correspond to adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. By themselves they do not refer to reality, but modify the meanings of categorematic terms. For example, "all", "about", "since", etc.
Categorematic terms are further divided into:
Absolute terms. They are primary and non-definable.
Connotative terms. They are secondary: they are a combination of the primary ones. They are defined by absolute and syncategorematic terms (nominal definitions).
Mental language contains only absolute terms (together with syncategorematic terms). Anything that can be said about the world can be expressed using only absolute and syncategorematic terms.
Ockham's mental language follows his principle of parsimony or conceptual economy (Ockham's famous razor), for it has a reductionist character. Mental terms are absolute and irreducible. All other categorematic mental terms (the connotative ones) can be reduced to absolute and syncategorematic terms.
MENTAL vs. Mentalese
Simplicity.
It seems logical to think that the variety of natural (surface) languages may arise from a common (deep) language innate to all human beings. It is the simplest hypothesis, the one that follows the principle of Ockham's razor (choose the simplest option among all the possible ones). It is the hypothesis that also follows the principle of descending causality: the superior manifests itself in the inferior (or the profound in the superficial). Other hypotheses, more complex, would be to suppose a different Mentalese for each natural language, and even a different Mentalese for each person and language.
Universal semantic primitives.
Mentalese is clearly linked to the issue of the existence of universal semantic primitives (universal lexical semantics) and to a GU (universal grammar or universal structural semantics). In MENTAL universal semantic primitives play both the roles of lexical semantics and structural semantics. Here Ockham's razor applies twice.
Analogy with a machine language.
The metaphor of a machine language can be applied to MENTAL, because its universal semantic primitives are like the "instructions" of a computer that allow to express the generic and the specific by means of the combination of those "instructions", which are degrees of freedom, and that allow to build infinite possible different programs (thoughts).
Here the metaphor is two-way: the mind would be a computer based on the 12 primitives of MENTAL, and a computer can be designed using these primitives, following the model of the human mind. There is convergence between mind and machine.
Propositional-imaginal.
MENTAL is propositional and imaginal. It is a formal, linear, propositional language, and it is also a symbolic language that evokes archetypal images. The symbols themselves try to reflect the semantics and reflect the form, the syntax. Primitives, by their very structure, include "gates" of connection to other primitives. Depending on the type of primitive, the number of gates can be fixed or variable. For example, the primitive "Sequence" has a variable number of gates, and the primitive "Particularization" has a fixed number (two). The expressions form a network of connections.
Where there is thought there is imagination. It is not possible to think without imagining. And where imagination is, there is consciousness, the soul. Therefore, thought is not autonomous because it depends on the higher levels of the soul: consciousness and imagination.
Thought is not an independent faculty. We think with images, as many philosophers and cognitive scientists argue. We also remember with images, just as we visualize (imagine) the future with images.
Thought is supported by imagination, which is a faculty of the soul, like consciousness. It cannot think without its higher foundation. Consciousness sees unity in all things. Imagination is the vehicle of consciousness. Consciousness resides in the deep, where everything is unified and where there are no differences or distinctions.
The cause-effect relationship between mental states and behavior can be explained by imagination, for all imagination tends to be realized (being on a higher level than the mental and physical). This type of behavior cannot be explained by going only to the neurophysiological level.
Union of analysis and synthesis.
Mentalese is a strong rationalist model of cognition, considering that Mentalese is propositional and computational-representational. In this sense, Mentalese is an attempt to objectify and naturalize the mind, to consider the mind as part of the physical (objective) world, thus avoiding the need to postulate psychic (subjective) entities or properties.
But the mental process is not only logical and rational, but fundamentally analogical and synthetic. An analogical representation, in this case, is a resemblance between an external phenomenon and its corresponding internal mental content. Analogical representations are based on images.
The only way to reconcile the external and the internal vision (the two modes of consciousness) is to turn to the Jungian concept of archetype. Archetypes connect the internal and the external.
Language of consciousness.
According to Fodor, we cannot learn a language unless we already know one. MENTAL is that innate universal language (LU) and that innate universal grammar (GU). Both are the same thing: LU = GU. Particular languages are manifestations of this universal language. But MENTAL is not the language of thought, but the language of consciousness.
MENTAL is the common language underlying all reality, including natural languages and the artificial languages of the formal sciences (mathematics, computer science, artificial intelligence, etc.). But there is a difference: while MENTAL is a hypothesis, MENTAL is a concrete and effective reality, a theoretical and practical language.
Conclusions
With MENTAL the subject of the Mentalese hypothesis, the language of thought, is clarified:
There is no such language of thought. There is only a more fundamental, deeper and universal language: the language of consciousness. This language is present in all things, in the inner world and in the outer world, and it connects both worlds.
The only thing that can be expressed as a formal language is the language of the primary archetypes (MENTAL), a language that is not expressible in itself, but only its manifestations are expressible. MENTAL is the supreme abstract approach to the world of the mind.
MENTAL is the foundation of all thought and of all language. MENTAL is the universal code.
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