1. Does thought depend on language?
We human beings may not be the most admirable species on the planet, or the most
likely to survive for another millennium, but we are without any doubt at all
the most intelligent. We are also the only species with language. What is the
relation between these two obvious facts?
Before going on to consider that question, I must pause briefly to defend my
second premise. Don't whales and dolphins, vervet monkeys and honey bees (the
list goes on) have languages of sorts? Haven't chimpanzees in laboratories been
taught rudimentary languages of sorts? Yes, and body language is a sort of
language, and music is the international language (sort of) and politics is a
sort of language, and the complex world of odor and olfaction is another, highly
emotionally charged language, and so on. It sometimes seems that the highest
praise we can bestow on a phenomenon we are studying is the claim that its......
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