I just saw someone on my Facebook timeline proudly shared about how he “made a ruckus” on some online scientific forum because he challenged the argument made by a paper titled “Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought” (the article on NYTimes | the paper H/T gwern)
(translated)
Last Sunday night, I caused a ‘commotion’ in an online scientific forum. A group of researchers from a far-off country argued that ‘words are for communicating, not for reasoning’ – that the function of language is merely for communication, not for building logical reason.
During the presentation session, I asked something like this: ‘If the function of language is merely a tool for communication, how do the users of that language achieve consensus on meaning in the language?’ I beg to differ. Meaning is built from logical reasoning, from our ability to think logically, and meaning is constructed socially. For example, to call an apple an apple, the majority of the language community must agree that an apple is called an apple. Here, language can no longer be considered merely a tool for communication. Language is a tool for thinking, a part of logical reasoning.
The presentation session came to a halt. There was a commotion 😅. The research has already been published in The New York Times under the title ‘Do We Need Language to Think?’
I think it boils down to four questions:
- Can we think without language?
- Can we communicate without language?
- Can language help us think and reason?
- Can language help us communicate and reach consensus?
The answer is YES to all four.
The paper does not claim that the only function of language is to communicate. Nor is it saying that we absolutely don’t need language to think.
I feel like the OP (an Indonesian sociology scholar based in Australia?) fell into the trap of black or white, all or nothing thinking — or what SI Hayakawa (and Alfred Korzybski) called two-valued orientation.
The paper is making a much more nuanced argument than that.
Language, cognition, communication
Verbal communication and text-based communication are subsets of communication. One look from your partner or friend is can mean a lot than words can capture.
Language is one way to externalise our thoughts, whether it’s to ourselves or to others (writing is one way to think and writing is one way to communicate).
There are people with silent mind. They (myself included) are perfectly capable of thinking. Yes, we need language to explain math but we can reach conclusions non verbally. In fact, some math breakthroughs are intuited and then the mathematicians used logic and reason to come up with proofs for their intuition.
Consensus is a subset of communication. Language can help us reason, but language is just one form of cognition.
Externalisation is an invaluable method for (verbal) thinking. Collective intelligence is one important form of human cognition we are just beginning to tap into as a society. And verbal communication (externalised, stored, and distributed) enables these.
By the way, I define language here as any verbal (written and spoken) artifacts with syntax, grammar, and semantics. Math symbols are also language. And btw, I think math is just one type of cognition we do.
While we’re on this, let’s revisit what Wittgenstein wrote about “thinking first or language first“.
Language first or thinking first?
In John Shotter’s paper, “More than Cool Reason: Withness-thinking’ or ‘systemic thinking'”, (via John L. Jerz,
Indeed, as Wittgenstein (1953) remarks, “If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also in judgments” (no.242), and those around us teach us such judgments not by giving us explanations, but simply by saying things like: “No, that’s not it, try again,” and so on, until at last they feel they can say: “Yes, that’s it.” Wittgenstein (1953) notes, “This is simply what searching, this is what finding, is like here” (p.218).
Thus, like James, Wittgenstein also begins by focusing on shared phenomena, upon often un-nameable shared experiences. He describes the beginning of a set of shared language intertwined activities (what he calls a “language-game”) thus: “The origin and primitive form of the language game is a reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop.
“Language – I want to say – is a refinement, ‘in the beginning was the deed’ [Goethe]” (Wittgenstein, 1980, p.31)… Language did not emerge from some kind of ratiocination” (1969, no.475)3. “But what is the word “primitive” meant to say here? Presumably that this sort of behaviour is pre-linguistic: that a language-game is based on it, that it is the prototype of a way of thinking and not the result of thought” (1981, no.541).
The first paragraph is in favour of language as means of communication, while the last paragraph is in favour of language as a mean of thinking. But thinking happens before “languaging”.
Closing thoughts
I’ve been obsessing over this topic for most of my adult life. And at this current moment, I still stand by these:
Quoting my essay, The limit of your language:
I’m not saying that optimising the breadth and depth of our language is a useless effort. But we should not forget to step back and recognise the limited realm that language provides.
We can actually communicate without words. Communication goes beyond words.
We can actually think without words. Thinking requires more than words.
Words are necessary but insufficient. We cannot do well without words and symbols. Words allow us to describe some of our inner experiences. Being able to point at our thoughts, feelings, ideas, and express them is arguably the most important aspect to our wellbeing as human beings.
But, don’t let the limits of language be the limit of your world.
