To me the deterministic argument is like the nature vs. nurture argument: neither are an accurate way of framing the issue.
Before the nature of language and thought can be explained we need a decent definition of both. A definition of language, tricky though it may be, is eaiser to define than thought. Does a definition of thought just include our inner monologue? Or should we expand it to include the things that we can see and hear entirely in our own heads? All these things are limited by the stimuli that inputs to the specific parts of coginition that deals with them. In the end thought is the process of creating a model of the objective world in our minds through the input from our senses. I think in the end we are faced with a tautology: The thought that requires language is linguistic thought, just as the kind of thought that requires us to picture things in our minds requires eyes.
Noam Chomsky sees the role of language as a way to express thought. If we take this perspective then language can't limit what it evolved to express.
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To me the deterministic argument is like the nature vs. nurture argument: neither are an accurate way of framing the issue. Before the nature of language and thought can be explained we need a decent definition of both. A definition of language, tricky though it may be, is eaiser to define than thought. Does a definition of thought just include our inner monologue? Or should we expand it to include the things that we can see and hear entirely in our own heads? All these things are limited by the stimuli that inputs to the specific parts of coginition that deals with them. In the end thought is the process of creating a model of the objective world in our minds through the input from our senses. I think in the end we are faced with a tautology: The thought that requires language is linguistic thought, just as the kind of thought that requires us to picture things in our minds requires eyes. Noam Chomsky sees the role of language as a way to express thought. If we take this perspective then language can't limit what it evolved to express.