[lit-ideas] Re: Must the Word be Literate?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 22:01:00 +0100 (BST)
--- Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> As Wittgenstein once put it [Investigations §336], 'A French politician
> once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language that in it
> words occur in the order in which one thinks them.'
Robert Paul does not say but surely Wittgenstein is offering this thought as
one that cannot be taken seriously? If so, would Wittgenstein have asked
Walter whether his post was some kind of joke (as I might have asked myself
except I'm been injuncted not to say or do anything for a month that might
allude to Bob Dylan).
Again Robert Paul does not say but does he offer this idea of a "mental
language" that precedes and is independent of any "natural language" as an
idea not to be taken seriously?
> I seem to remember that Occam (?) believed there was a mental language
> out of which thoughts had to be translated before they could be
> expressed in a natural language such as Latin.
The idea of such a "mental language" might be open to the kind of objection
that can be raised against "innate ideas": but just as we can rehabilitate
the notion of "innateness" if we separate it from the idea of "ideas" and
speak instead of "innate knowledge" in the form for example of "dispositions
to react", so we might rehabilitate the notion of 'mental activity prior to
linguistic expression' if we separate it from the idea of a "mental language"
and speak instead of conscious or unconscious mental states that precede
their expression in language.
Just a thought.
Donal
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