Helm writes in a post entitled, "Language as a mental tool":
"Hmm. Some comments were made but they don't seem to relate well to the
Berwick-Chomsky project in this book -- my fault by being misleading no doubt.
The various arguments that deal with the evolution of language are listed from
Szamadoo and Szathmary (2006) -- alternate theories that explain the emergence
of human language."
Recall that EMERGENCE is philosophicalese. It relates to SUPERVENIENCE. So it's
best to stick, if that's what one means, 'evolve'. I know, old-fashioned and
Spencerian and Darwinian, but we are dealing with what lingo evolved from.
Helm: "these include: (1) language as gossip; (2) language as social grooming;
(3) language as outgrowth of hunting cooperation; (4) language as outcome of
'motherese'; (5) sexual selection; (6) language as requirement of exchanging
status information; (7) language as song; ) language as requirement for
toolmaking or outcome of toolmaking; (9) language as outgrowth of gestural
systems; (10 language as Machiavellian device for deception; and , finally,
(11) language as 'internal mental tool.'"
In the old days, it was the 'ouch', the 'pooh pooh', and the 'bow wow', and a
few others. Of course in the lingo of Sz. & Sz., Grice fits under (3), lingo as
outgrowth of ... cooperation. But the 11 items need careful conceptual
analysis, and I seem to like most of them, except perhaps Chomsky's (11), :).
Berwick:
""Note" Berwick and Chomsky explain in the subsequent paragraph "that only this
last theory, language as internal mental tool, does not assume, explicitly or
implicitly, that the primary function of language is for external
communication. But this leads to a kind of adaptive paradox, since animal
signaling ought to then suffice -- the same problem that Wallace pointed out.
Szamado and Szathmary (2006, 679) note: 'Most of the theories do not consider
the kind of selective forces that could encourage the use of conventional
communication in a given context instead of the use of 'traditional' animal
signals. . . . Thus, there is no theory that convincingly demonstrates a
situation that would require a complex means of symbolic communication rather
than the existing simpler communication systems.' They further note that the
language-as-mental-tool theory does not suffer from this defect. However,
they, like most researchers in this area, do not seem to draw the obvious
inference but instead maintain a focus on externalization and communication."
The above is from pages 80-81 of Why Only Us, Language and Evolution.
"Language as internal mental tool" rang true in my case so I had no problem
rejecting earlier views."
Well, one may need a conceptual analysis of 'mental' and 'tool'. A hammer is a
tool. Is a mental tool mind's tool -- whose mind? Homo sapiens's mind? Tool for
what? Or tool to what? I expect it's not tool to THINK!
Helm:
"This doesn't mean that I don't use language as communication or that I do
things without thinking -- I know I do. I do more things by rote than I ought
to. But if I want to think about something, something I'm reading, something
I'm writing, a difficult concept I'm wrestling with, a poem, then language is
for me a mental tool."
I like that conditional. Only I would not use the 'then', and have it as the
Philonian material conditional. But still 'tool' remains figurative. I guess
it's an Anglo-Saxon term, tool, and thus not part of the Greco-Roman Ciceronian
philosophical vocabulary. Instrumentum comes to mind -- but instrumentalism has
other uses in philosophicalese. E.g. an instrumentalist is a philosopher of
science who thinks that things like
E = mc2
is not really true (or false) but useful.
A tool, metaphorically speaking
Old English "tol" may be repharsed as an "instrument, implement used by a
craftsman or labourer, weapon," from Proto-Germanic *to(w)lam "implement"
(source also of Old Norse "tol"), from a verb stem represented by Old English
"tawian", "prepare" (see "taw"). The ending is the instrumental suffix "-el"
(1).
Having in mind this, one wonder about the phrase, "mental tool'. Prepare. Why
do we need an instrumental suffix?
Instrumentum may not shed any more light.
---- INTERLUDE ON "INSTRUMENTUM" ----
instrūmentum, i, n. id.,
I an implement of any kind, a utensil, tool, instrument (classical Latin).
I Lit.: militare, Caes. B. G. 6, 30: culinarum argentea, Just. 38, 10, 4:
crudelia jussae instrumenta necis, Ov. M. 3, 698.—
2 Esp., sing. collect., instruments, apparatus, material, stock, furniture
(freq. and class.): instrumentum ac ornamenta villae, Cic. Dom. 24, 62:
orationes magna impensā magnoque instrumento tueri, id. Verr. 2, 3, 21, § 53:
belli instrumentum et apparatus, id. Ac. 2, 1, 3: rusticum, Phaedr. 4, 4, 24;
Val. Max. 4, 4, 6: hostium spolia, monumenta imperatorum, decora atque
ornamenta fanorum, in instrumento atque in supellectile Verris nominabuntur,
Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 44, § 97; cf. Pall. 1, 43, 1: hibernorum, Caes. B. C. 5, 31:
bellicum, Liv. 42, 53, 4: nauticum, id. 30, 10, 3: venatorium, Plin. Ep. 3, 19,
3: piscationis, Paul. Sent. 3, 6, 41.—Esp., in law, the personalty, chattels,
or stock of a farm, business, trade, etc.: fundo legato, neque instrumentum
fundi ... ad legatarium pertinet, Paul. Sent. 3, 6, 34: instrumento cauponio
legato, ea debentur, quae in cauponis usum parata sunt, velut vasa, id. ib. 3,
6, 61: pistoris, id. ib. § 64: medici, Dig. 33, 7, 18, § 10; cf.: in fanis alia
vasorum sunt et sacrae supellectilis, alia ornamentorum, quae vasorum sunt
instrumenti instar habent, quibus sacrificia conficiuntur, apparatus, Macr. S.
3, 11, 5. —
II Trop.
A
Of writings, an instrument, document, record: opus est intueri omne litis
instrumentum, Quint. 12, 8, 12: aerearum tabularum tria milia ... instrumentum
imperii pulcherrimum ac vetustissimum, Suet. Vesp. 8: publici instrumenti
auctoritas, id. Calig. 8: emtionis, Dig. 24, 1, 58: si scriptum fuerit
instrumento, promisisse aliquem, Paul. Sent. 5, 7, 2: instrumentorum obligatio
desideratur, id. ib. 2, 17, 13. —
B
Store, provision, supply, means, assistance, furtherance, etc.: oratoris,
provision, supply, Cic. de Or. 1, 36, 165: causarum, id. ib. 2, 34,
146.—Absol.: quid viatici, quid instrumenti satis sit, i. e. for a journey,
Cic. Att. 12, 32, 2: instrumenta ad obtinendam sapientiam, means, id. Leg. 1,
22, 59: virtutis, id. Cat. 2, 5, 9: naturae, id. Brut. 77, 268: graviorum
artium, id. ib. 97: dicendi, Quint. 12, 11, 24: ciborum, i. e. organs of
digestion, Plin. 7, 50, 51, § 168.—
C
Ornament, embellishment: felices ornent haec instrumenta libellos, Ov. Tr. 1,
1, 9: anilia, apparel, dress, id. M. 14, 766; Suet. Aug. 73.
----- END OF INTERLUDE ON LATIN "INSTRUMENTUM".
It may do to search if anyone ever talked of "instrumentum mentale".
Grice once played with the idea of words as tools, and he joked. If he had a
paperweight, in the shape of the word "MOTHER", he wouldn't say he's using the
word "mother" to keep his papers safe from the wind. The only use words have is
for communication. This is from the Retrospective Epilogue to his "Studies in
the Way of Words".
The title in fact is a joke on Locke. As Yolton points out, in Locke's
Semiotics, there are three ways for Locke:
-- the way of things -- as apples and pears.
-- the way of ideas -- Locke's emphasis (his tabula rasa that Chomsky hates) --
the sensations that leads to the idea of apple and pear.
-- the way of words -- and the 'inviolable liberty', Locke writes, that Homo
sapiens has to make sounds (or other signs) stand for any idea "he pleases".
This liberty (liberalism, alla Grice) is the basis of J. F. Bennett, in his
book on the British empiricism, to call Locke a proto-Griceian! You don't need
just have an idea, you may need to have an intention for your
co-conversationalist to recognize that the 'sign' you chose to "represent" your
idea is one that he is able to have himself. This may be tricky. One example
Grice gives is:
"Help yourself a piece of cake, dear."
Grice is chatting with a little girl in French. And he realizes that SHE thinks
that something which in French means something quite different MEANS "Help
yourself a piece of cake, dear."
"So I utter this French sentence, which does NOT mean, "Help yourself a piece
of cake, dear", but since my intention is that she THINKS that I intend that
she help herself with a piece of cake, that's what I do."
The fact that the utterance Grice uses means quite something different in
French makes no difference. The little girl will help herself some cake,
because Grice is allowing her to do so.
The example comes as Grice's reply to an alleged counterexample by Searle --
Searle had proposed that an American soldier captured by the Italians during
the Second World War utters:
-- Kennst du das land wo die zitronen bluehmen?
which is the only line he knows in German (the opening line in "Faust"). But he
intends his Italian captors to think that what he means is "Help me, I'm so
please you found me; I'm a German officer."
Grice grants that this is the case. If this is what the American soldier
INTENDS, this is what he means by uttering the Goethe line. But Grice adds a
point to the effect that no Italian should be so naïve.
Helm concludes his post:
"But Berwick and Chomsky have something more fundamental in mind. They believe
that the use of language "evolved" sometime before 80,000 years ago as an
internal mental tool. They imply that most scientists would stick to one of
the other 10 or so theories to explain the emergence of human language; so
perhaps I have introduced something controversial after all."
Well, that's a long time ago -- 80,000 years ago. Grice was born in 1913, and
that seems also almost prehistory. Grice possibly was fluent enough in English
by age 5. And recall that ontogenesis repeats phylogenesis --. "Internal mental
tool" adds "internal" to "mental tool" which is controversial enough! In any
case, Skinner's verbal behaviour is a necessity. If Grice had not started
saying things like, "Mom, I'm hungry", followed by a loud utterance of
"Apple!", but keeping his internal mental tool for hisself, he would possibly
starve (implicature: to death).
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away," Mother Grice replies, and little Paul
keeps learning, now idioms and clichés and stuff.
Cheers,
Speranza
