Thought Without Language

Does thought depend crucially on language, as some philosophers maintain, or can abstract reasoning and other faculties exist in the absence of language? This voume, based on a Fyssen Foundation symposium held in Versailles in April 1987, addresses this crucial question in a new way, bringing together experts on non-verbal thinking in adults, in pre-linguistic infants, and in animals. The nineteen chapters, discussion and editorial comment represent an impressive body of material,...
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Does thought depend crucially on language, as some philosophers maintain, or can abstract reasoning and other faculties exist in the absence of language? This voume, based on a Fyssen Foundation symposium held in Versailles in April 1987, addresses this crucial question in a new way, bringing together experts on non-verbal thinking in adults, in pre-linguistic infants, and in animals. The nineteen chapters, discussion and editorial comment represent an impressive body of material, shedding new light on many aspects of the problem. Topics covered include the role of the non-verbal right cerebral hemisphere in humans; the investigation of non-verbal aspects of various categories of cognition (such as abstract reasoning, spatial awareness, and pattern recognition); evidence for cognition without concious awareness; and neurological and developmental evidence. The concluding chapter is a personal account by a gifted but dyslexic mathematician of the nature of his handicap and the non-vebal reasoning that he has developed to cope with this. various