What is the Language of Thought Hypothesis?
LOTH is an empirical thesis about the nature of thought and thinking.
According to LOTH, thought and thinking are done in a mental language,
i.e. in a symbolic system physically realized in the brain of the relevant
organisms. In formulating LOTH, philosophers have in mind primarily the
variety of thoughts known as propositional attitudes'. Propositional
attitudes are the thoughts described by such sentence forms as S believes
that P', S hopes that P', S desires that P', etc., where S' refers to
the subject of the attitude, P' is any sentence, and that P' refers to
the proposition that is the object of the attitude. If we let A' stand
for such attitude verbs as believe', desire', hope', intend', think',
etc., then the propositional attitude statements all have the form: S As
that P.
LOTH can now be formulated......
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