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Full Idea
Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men.
Gist of Idea
Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social
Source
K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A)
Book Ref
Marx,K./Engels,F.: 'The German Ideology', ed/tr. Arthur,C.J. [Lawrence and Wishart 1985], p.51
A Reaction
Dennett takes a similar view - that consciousness is more-or-less a consequence of the development of consciousness. This is understandable if you make intentional rather than phenomenal consciousness central. Otherwise ants may well have it.
| 5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
| 13977 | When I utter a sentence, listeners grasp both my meaning and my state of mind [Ryle] |
| 7751 | Meaning needs an intention to induce a belief, and a recognition that this is the speaker's intention [Grice] |
| 7752 | Only the utterer's primary intention is relevant to the meaning [Grice] |
| 7753 | We judge linguistic intentions rather as we judge non-linguistic intentions, so they are alike [Grice] |
| 15668 | Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| 2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
| 2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
| 4690 | If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn] |