The Limits of Thinking without Words

In the previous chapter we saw that a certain type of thinking is unavailable at the non-linguistic level. A forms of thinking which involve thinking about thought (and hence taking particular thoughts as the objects of thought) are only available to creatures participating in a public language. Thoughts can only be the objects of further thoughts if they have suitable vehicles and the only possible vehicles are public language sentences. Intentional ascent requires semantic ascent. In this chapter I will consider the practical implications which this has for the scope and limits of non-linguistic thought. We will be concerned in particular with the following two questions. What types of thinking are in principle unavailable to non-linguistic creatures? What sort of primitive precursors might there be at the nonlinguistic level for types of thinking which involve intentional ascent in their full-fledged form?