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Single Idea 8090

[filed under theme 18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought ]

Full Idea

Fodor and Jackendorff argue that since the internal language of thought, or conceptual structure, has to be more or less the same for all people, of whatever language, it will surely be something like logical form.

Gist of Idea

Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form

Source

report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.8

Book Ref

Devlin,Keith: 'Goodbye Descartes: the end of logic' [Wiley 1997], p.195

A Reaction

The discovery (by, e.g., Frege and Russell) that there is something called 'logical form', which we can track down and represent in precise and fairly unambiguous symbolism, may be one of the greatest of all human discoveries. Perhaps.

The 19 ideas with the same theme [brains have an in-built private language ('Mentalese')]:

2605 If everything uses mentalese, ALL concepts must be innate! [Putnam]
2606 No machine language can express generalisations [Putnam]
3086 Are there any meanings apart from in a language? [Harman]
3996 Folk psychology doesn't say that there is a language of thought [Lewis]
2524 A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett]
4874 The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [Dennett]
2483 Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor]
2480 Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor]
2487 Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor]
8090 Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin]
12643 Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor]
2604 We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor]
3010 Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor]
3213 Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey]
3170 We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey]
7715 Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe]
4927 Information-processing views of the brain assume the existence of 'information', and dubious brain codes [Edelman/Tononi]
11121 Language of thought has subject/predicate form and includes logical devices [Margolis/Laurence]
17767 The alternative to a language of thought is map-like or diagram-like thought [Bayne]