Saturday, 2 April 2011

Is it possible to think without language?

Yes, i believe that it is possible to think without language; however without any language the extent of our thoughts is largely inhibited. However if I were to ask someone to imagine themselves to kick a football they would be able to imagine the action of kicking the football. However the main problem, I believe arises in this theory in the asking of the question. How could I ask someone to think about something if language does not exist?
Although if one were to take a baby for example, they do not have any language at this stage in their life, yet they still manage to think. They know when they're hungry, tired etc...
It is also arguable that language is not only in the form of words. Through symbols, actions, noises. It is any form of distinguishable pattern put together.
This then sways my answer to whether or not I think you can think without language more towards No. If everything we do is some form of language or another how could one possibly think anything without language.
Although there is reason to believe that one can think without language. Take for example Helen Keller. This is a woman who lived all but 19 months of her life both deaf and blind. Yet she broke the mould and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. She formed her own way off communication. However it can be argued that she formed her own sort of language that allowed her to think.
There is a hypothesis called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This states that language determines our experience of reality, and we can see and think only what our language allows us to see and think.
There is an example that Benjamin Whorf studied in which he found a certain people, whose language contained no word for time, neither past present or future. We can draw the conclusion from this that since they have no word for it, they cannot have any concept for it at all.
We can apply this logic to the main question under review, ‘Is it possible to think without language?’. Without having a word for something or any way to communicate it how can we possibly think about it? I don’t believe it would be possible to conjure up the notion of something that we cannot physically put into the words. It is like searching for something that doesn’t really exist.
However critics of this hypothesis will state that reality determines language, and the reason that this people for example have no need for a word to do with time is because it is irrelevant to their lives, if they have not needed to use a word for it then they have no need for it at all.

Back with the argument that one can think without language there are other proofs to back this up. For example tests have shown that babies as young as 5 months old have been able to do basic mathematics. We know that babies this young do not have the benefit of language yet they are able to think in order to complete the arithmetic.
We can also say that ‘Semantics’ is an example of thoughts being dominant to language. The fact that we often say something that we don’t mean would suggest that our thoughts come before language. Language often distorting what we really mean.
The final example of how one can think without thought is through the creation of new words. There must be some form of thought without language for one to be able to invent a new word, seeing as one would be doing so without using any already known language.
It all comes down to the fact that language is the core of how, we as human beings function. It is the key reason why I believe that we are the most intellectual being on this planet. We can hold in depth discussions with one another and think to ourselves. I see no way that language limits our thinking, it only aids it. This isn't to say that language doesn't limit other parts of our life. Such as transferring these thoughts to words. Perhaps we could even say that we don't us the full extent of our language when thinking, just fragments of what we are trying to say.

How would we function were there to be no language involved in our thinking what so ever?




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