Thought, Language, and Reasoning. Perspectives on the Relation

PhD-FHSE-2021-025 The Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences DISSERTATION Defence held on 12/07/2021 in Esch-sur-Alzette to obtain the degree of DOCTEUR DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DU LUXEMBOURG EN PHILOSOPHIE by Hannes FRAISSLER Born on 29 January 1986 in Voitsberg (Austria) THOUGHT, LANGUAGE, AND REASONING: PERSPECTIVES ON THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND LANGUAGE Dissertation defence committee Dr Frank Hofmann, dissertation supervisor Professor, Université du Luxembourg Dr Mark Textor Professor, King’s College London Dr Dietmar Heidemann, Chairman Professor, Université du Luxembourg Dr Holger Sturm Professor, Universität des Saarlandes Dr Thomas Raleigh, Vice Chairman Associate Professor, Université du Luxembourg Abstract This dissertation is an investigation into the relation between mind and language from different perspectives, split up into three interrelated but still, for the most part, self- standing parts. Parts I and II are concerned with the question how thought is affected by language while Part III investigates the scope covered by mind and language respectively. Part I provides a reconstruction of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous Private Language Argument in order to apply the rationale behind this line of argument to the relation between mind and language. This argumentative strategy yields the conclusion that reasoning – an important type of thought – is constitutively dependent on language possession and is therefore not available to non-linguistic creatures. This result is achieved by con- sidering the preconditions for reasoning – given that it is a rule-governed activity – and eliminating competitors to language for providing reasoners with what it takes to reason. Part II provides a critical outlook on the wide and highly heterogeneous field of linguistic relativity theories. It is argued that no kind of linguistic relativity whatsoever follows from the conclusion of Part I – i.e., the claim that reasoning is constitutively dependent on having a language. While Part II does not provide a conclusive argument against the linguistic relativity hypothesis, it is argued that endorsement of linguistic relativity theories often rests on a mistaken assumption to the effect that language and culture are interwoven in a way which makes it impossible to separate culture and language, as well as their respective studies. This assumption is undermined by providing examples of lan- guages which clearly predate their culture (Esperanto) or do not even have a culture at all (Klingon). So, the assumption that language and culture are inextricably intertwined is refuted by way of counterexample. Part III provides an in-depth examination of the Principle of Expressibility – promi- nently endorsed and formulated by John Searle – which claims that whatever can be thought can also be said. The domains of what can be thought and of what can be said are considered in set theoretic terms in order to determine whether one is contained in the other, so that everything we can think can also be adequately communicated. Af- ter thorough study of interpretative issues regarding the Principle of Expressibility and consideration of the most pressing potential counterexamples to the principle, we can conclude that we have good reason to believe in the truth of the Principle of Expressibility. In conclusion, the achieved results are related back to prominent positions in the discussion about thought and language which already make their appearance in the very beginning of this investigation. The final chapter of this dissertation reminds us that eminent fig- ures in philosophy have often taken a wrongheaded perspective on the relation between language and thought, so that language has frequently appeared to be an impediment to thought. We can, however, confidently conclude that language, on the contrary, isbyfar our most apt means for thought and that reasoning would not even be possible without the resources language provides. Thought, Language, and Reasoning Perspectives on the Relation Between Mind and Language Hannes Fraissler University of Luxembourg For my family To those who have always been with me, as well as those who cannot be with us anymore This document was composed using freely available open source software: LYX (text editing) https://www.lyx.org/ MiKTeX (LATEX distribution) https://miktex.org/ Zotero (reference management) https://www.zotero.org/ SumatraPDF (document viewer) https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/ Inkscape (image vectorization) https://inkscape.org/ Preface and Acknowledgments This is an investigation into the relation between thought and language and, as indicated in the thesis’s subtitle, it covers more than one perspective on the topic. The different perspectives provided roughly align with the three parts of the investigation at hand and represent topics and approaches which have kept my mind busy for many years past. This situation will probably not change in the near future since I have opened some doors in the course of this investigation which could probably occupy a philosopher for a lifetime. So, I certainly do not wish to claim that there is nothing more to say about the topics treated here (even from my part). I do hope, on the contrary, for many occasions to further investigate considerations and arguments I merely sketched in what is to follow, as well as for occasions to elaborate on one or the other topic that might give rise to new debate – if things go well. The general outlook of this thesis is in good agreement with the recently evolving research program of Cultural Evolutionary Psychology (cf. Heyes, 2018), which is open to the view that reasoning is a cognitive gadget – dependent “[. ] on cognitive mechanisms constructed in the course of development through social interaction [. ]” (Heyes, 2018, p. 220) – which in turn depends on another cognitive gadget: language. However, the claims made on the following pages are, as far as I can see, also compatible with the position that reasoning and language might be cognitive instincts rather than cognitive gadgets in Heyes’s sense. Another congenial contemporary approach I think to have found in Mercier & Sperber’s impressive study of The Enigma of Reason, which locates the “normal” environment for a proper functioning of reason “[. ] in the midst of a discussion, as people exchange arguments and justifications with each other” (Mercier & Sperber, 2017, p. 10). Imayadd v PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS that it is not a mere (evolutionary) coincidence that such discussions take place in language, for language – as I argue – is the very medium which makes reasoning possible in the first place. So much for points of contact with recent developments, but there is also at least one notable breaking point with current and traditional approaches to the topic at hand. Some readers will certainly be surprised by the fact that I have virtually nothing to say about concept acquisition in this investigation and very little about concepts in general. This, I gather, will strike many as quite unusual – at least for an investigation of such extent – since especially concept acquisition arguably constitutes a standard topic to be covered by studies of the relation between thought and language. I presently follow a quite different approach to show that language enables reasoning and is therefore a crucial cognitive factor. Not all mental abilities are, of course, dependent on language. But reasoning – which is undoubtedly an absolutely central (although not defining)1 human capacity – could not be available without language due to conceptual requirements which make reasoning different from mere thinking. In any case, I hope that a missing treatment of concept acquisition will not be perceived as a lacuna of the present investigation. To the contrary, not only what I discuss here but also that it is possible to arrive at substan- tial claims without covering concept acquisition will hopefully prove to be a fruitful contribution to the discussion about mind, language, and their intri- cate interrelation. I will, for the most part, stay neutral regarding competing theories of mental representation and format of reasoning and thinking, as well as regarding the correct semantic theory for language. Although I have my preferences in this regard and although I think that some theories align more naturally with the claims defended here than others, I have tried to presuppose as little as possible in terms of the correct theory of the mind and the correct theory of language. 1 I take the term “human” to be a name for the biological species we all belong to. This means that what makes a human being is simply the possession of a certain kind of DNA, granted a rough-and-ready version of biological essentialism. This presumably excludes all kinds of cognitive or cultural abilities from a definition of what makes an individual human. vi PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Some remarks on the origins of the following investigation’s individual parts are needed at this point. The core aspects of the material covered in Part I, and a few fractions of Part II, were presented at the 2 nd Meeting on Cognition & Language – 2eC&L, held at the Federal University of Uberlândia – UFU (Uberlândia, MG, Brazil), and during the international online research workshop Mind and Language, hosted by the University of Luxembourg. I wish to thank all discussants at both events for their valuable input which informed and greatly improved my (2021), where the aforementioned pieces of the current investigation have already appeared in print. The core of the considerations presented in Part II were originally writ- ten not only as a part of the present investigation but also in order to be presented at a PhD Conference in Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg. The talk, alas, never happened because unfortunate circum- stances kept me from taking advantage of the opportunity to present the pertinent considerations to an audience which certainly would have provided quite valuable insights since I suspect that at least some highly esteemed col- leagues from the social sciences and neighboring disciplines who participated in this event might have been sympathetic to the kind of position I attack.

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