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| 19758 | Language may aid thinking, but powerful thought was needed to produce language [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: If men needed speech in order to learn to think, they had a still greater need for knowing how to think in order to discover the art of speaking. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |
| A reaction: I take language to be a consequence of the emergence of meta-thought in humanity, so I thoroughly endorse Rousseau's view. The idea that rationality, and even consciousness, are mainly facilitated by language strikes me as quite wrong. |