display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
6392 | Thought depends on speech [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The thesis I want to refine and then argue for is that thought depends on speech. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.8) | |
A reaction: This has the instant and rather implausible implication that animals don't think. He is not, of course, saying that all thought is speech, which would leave out thinking in images. You can't do much proper thought without concepts and propositions. |
6393 | A creature doesn't think unless it interprets another's speech [Davidson] |
Full Idea: A creature cannot have a thought unless it is an interpreter of the speech of another. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.9) | |
A reaction: His use of the word 'creature' shows that he is perfectly aware of the issue of whether animals think, and he is, presumably, denying it. At first glance this sounds silly, but maybe animals don't really 'think', in our sense of the word. |
11144 | Concepts are only possible in a language community [Davidson] |
Full Idea: A private attitude is not intelligible except as an adjustment to the public norms provided by language. It follows that a creature must be a member of speech community if it is to have the concept of belief. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.170) | |
A reaction: This obviously draws on Wittgenstein's private language argument, and strikes me as blatantly wrong, because I take higher animals to have concepts without language. Pure vision gives rise to concepts. I don't even think they are necessarily conscious. |