Rival Theories on the Language of Thought

Philosophers and cognitive scientists use the Language of Thought (LOT) to claim that the mind is a device that operates according to strict rules of symbol manipulation. However, there are two rival theories concerning LOT.

The first theory claims that the medium of thought is an inborn language that is separate from human spoken language. Fodor calls it ‘mentalese’ and claims that it is the basis of our thoughts and meanings. Mentalese operates below conscious awareness.

The second view is that LOT is not innate and that linguistic thoughts do actually occur in and are dependent on - the languages that we speak. So, if you are a Japanese speaker, your LOT would be Japanese.

Fodor’s hypothesis is generally segmented into five parts:

Representational Realism: people have explicit representational systems: to have the belief that smoking causes cancer is to have a representational token with the content ‘smoking causes cancer’ in one's belief box.
Linguistic Thought: The representational system that underlies human thought, is similar to spoken human languages (semantically and syntactically)
Distinctness: LOT is not the same as any spoken language.
Nativism: LOT is genetically determined and it is possessed by all humans.
Semantic Completeness: LOT is expressively semantically complete. Anything we are able to understand is expressible in this language.

However, the fact is that we cannot locate mentalese, or any brain system responsible for its implementation. But, we don’t have to locate our natural language. It’s with us all the time. Some people even talk out-laud to themselves especially when attempting to carry out complex tasks. In my opinion this suggests that thinking in natural language is taking place. Surely, such individuals would not use it to communicate with anyone, as no-one is around.

Introspection also points to the natural language playing a major role in our thinking. When we focus inwards we notice that our thoughts are being formed in sentences of natural language. This monologue is our inner speech. Of course, there is always the possibility that we may think in mentalese and it is then translated into natural language.

These competing theories opinions have not yet been resolved, although a recent study at Harvard University refers to a ‘language-independent system for thinking about objects’ seems to support Fodor’s theory. http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/07.22/21-think.html