I know some people here believe it (Joker for one). I just read “The stuff of thought” By Steven Pinker, (now almost done evo-cognitive neuroscience) but anyway, the point is, pinker demolishes the idea.
Theres a lot of ways in which he destroys the arguement, but before I get to them I guess I would like to see why people believe it at all, the fact that we can learn new words/phrases (and create them) would suggest that language is no prisonhouse. People who speak different languages can speak differently, but language in gen eral is created from a ‘language of thought’ that all humans share.
For anyone interested in language and how it provides a window in human nature, this is the book. Its seriously astounding how educated/brilliant pinker is in solving some of the biggest scientific and philosophical issues concerning language.
For an example, the counting systems of 1, 2, and many is pretty common among hunter/gatherer or tribal groups (a tribal person without a number system remembers all his arrows as individual items, not as in we would: “I have ten arrows”.)
Some of these groups have words for more than 3/4, however, the fact that they have a word for these things does not give them a concecpt of it. As in, they knew the word, but couldn’t reproduce the knowledge.
So not only does language allow us to act in a broader range of potentially abstracted ideas (in deeveloping a number system where we can think past, 1, 2 or many) but it can help us remember things with phrases or whatever, capabilities we wouldn’t otherwise have.
when a human can’t explain somthing with the existing language they will modify, create words, concepts and metaphors, and language provides an infinite number of potential ways to convey a given idea, from a finite set of grammatical rules, etc.
Also, a great discovery of cognitive science is that people remember words poorly (try and recount the first two sentences, two paragraphs ago, word for word without looking) people remember the gist or overall idea of the words that they have a concept explained to them with. Its very suggestive.
I don’t see how anyone could destroy the argument that language is a prisonhouse for thought. You’d have to argue that you can’t think beyond language, and arguing that would only entail a lack of imagination.
The fact that we can learn new words and phrases in no way indicates to me that language isn’t a prisonhouse. That’s like saying that the fact we can add new cuisines means we’re not slaves to hunger.
Pinker explains how our written languages are made up of a ‘language of thought’ (we can say things like ‘fill the cup’ because its a state-change, but we can’t use it in a sentence that would use it as a motion-state or etc.
We have ‘rules of language’ from a ‘language of thought’ and we can break these rules of language all the time.
language doesn’t give us original concepts, concepts from within drive language, and if anything a constraint of language usually reveals a constraint of human thought.
For example, we saw how through language people can learn complex number systems freeing them frrom the 1,2 many system. Language can help us remember random facts much much much easier: “red sky in morning sailors warning” and etc, doesn’t constrain your mind from thinking about it, it helps and helps you remember.
Pinker was, quite frankly, wrong. I don’t care at all about this, but I’ve read a number of articles written on both sides of the pond which make mention of him as a quack and go on to debunk his reasoning in terms I can’t remember. Take that as you will, since I no longer have the links to reproduce, I don’t care.
The way I see it, inventing new words and phrases is like painting the walls of the prisonhouse cell. You can decorate it like a comfortable home, but the fact remains you’re confined to it.
What about examples where language increases our reasoning skills significantly while without it we’re trapped in 1,2 and many systems. Also, if language is a prison-house of thought, how can people create new concepts or misuse language concepts?
Social scientists scream racist nazi head-case whenever someone suggests part of human nature is innate, point me towards a scientific attack on pinker’s new work. (of course he’s called a quack, he destroys prety much all alternative theories with massive amounts of evidence)
Apparently you didn’t read what I wrote, so I’ll repeat it: I don’t care. This debate is absolutely meaningless to me. I just thought it might be fun to point out the six or seven scientific - i.e. from biologists - who rebutted him and yet whose names I quickly forgot. Just to, you know, to poke a hole in your rationalist hard-on.
As for ‘human nature’, it’s simply an evolution of the old Christian doctrine of original sin, used by life-unworthy-of-life to promulgate their continued moral condemnations of man, or, conversely, to initiate a reign of terror through utopianism.
Does it make you happy to go on random internet forums and make grandoise statements and actually pretend you’re educated about any of the claims being made on either side?
It’s just a matter of degrees. Yes, people think beyond language. The question is… to what degree do they not think beyond language that they could be doing, or should be doing. And yes, language is wickedly useful for communication and probably even reasoning, but only along certain dimensions, and then it traps you along those dimensions. It’s like a seductress.
I am. I’ve read the usual suspects - Hobbes and Rousseau - and realize just what hacks they were. I prefer instead Nagarjuna:
“Things have no essential nature because they are seen to change into something else. Things do not lack an essential nature because things are emptiness.”
And such constitutes a nature-which-is-not-nature, akin to Stirner’s creative nothing. If I have no nature, my nature is to have no nature. It is contradictory, and so is existence.
Also, whilst perusing his works, I happened upon this:
“That to which language refers is denied, because an object experienced by the mind is denied. The unborn and unceasing nature of reality is comparable to nirvana.”