Thinking without Words

by José Luis Bermúdez

Thinking without Words provides a challenging new theory of the nature of non-linguistic thought. Many scientific disciplines treat non-linguistic creatures as thinkers, explaining their behavior in terms of their thoughts about themselves and about the environment. But this theorizing has
proceeded without any clear account of the types of thinking available to non-linguistic creatures. One consequence of this is that ascriptions of thoughts to non-linguistic creatures have frequently been held to be metaphorical and not to be taken at face value. Bermúdez offers a conceptual
framework for treating human infants and non-human animals as genuine thinkers. Whereas existing discussions of thought at the non-linguistic level have concentrated on how such thoughts might be physically realized, Bermúdez approaches the problem by considering what is required in explaining
behavior in psychological terms. In developing a positive account of non-linguistic thought he shows how the experimental tools used by developmental psychologists and students of animal behavior can be used to give a precise account of the way in which a human infant or non-human animal is
representing the world. Much of the book is devoted to exploring the differences between thinking without words and language-based thinking. Bermúdez argues that there are clear limits to the expressive power of non-linguistic thought. Nonetheless, he identifies primitive analogues at the
non-linguistic level that can be used to explain sophisticated non-linguistic behaviors. Thinking Without Words is the first full-length philosophical study of this important topic. It is written with an interdisciplinary readership in mind and will appeal to philosophers, psychologists, and
students of animal behavior.

Genres: Philosophy

248 pages, Hardcover

First published March 14, 2003

About the author

José Luis Bermúdez is Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, where he previously served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and as Associate Provost for Strategic Planning. Before joining Texas A&M in 2010 he was Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Center for Programs in Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Bermúdez has more than 100 publications, including five single-author books and six edited volumes. His research interests are interdisciplinary in nature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. His first book, The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) analyzed the nature of self-awareness. Thinking without Words (Oxford UP, 2003) offered a model for thinking about the cognitive achievements and abilities of prelinguistic infants an nonlinguistiuc humans. Decision Theory and Rationality (Oxford UP, 2009) explores tensions in how the concept of rationality is defined and formalized in different academic disciplines. The second edition of his textbook Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2014. He is the editor of the New Problems in Philosophy book series, published by Routledge. Dr Bermudez is currently completing a book on the first person in language and thought, in addition to papers in the philosophy of mind and the theory of rationality.

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

We typically believe that thought and reasoning are linguistic in nature. But developmental psychology, cognitive anthropology, and ethology all show that pre-linguistic infants, hominid ancestors, and various animal species are capable of quite complex behaviors, and these fields explain those behaviors by attributing thoughts and reasoning to such non-linguistic creatures. We could either doubt these fields for anthropomorphizing these creatures, or overexaggerating their cognitive capacities. Or, we could revise our typical understanding on the nature of thought and reasoning. Bermudez takes the latter route.

Over the first seven chapters, Bermudez defends an account of non-linguistic thought that is syntactically structured and capable of basic reasoning, including a basic theory of mind. In chapter 2, Bermudez examines Frege's theory of language and Fodor's hypothesis of the language of thought, arguing that these two theories, despite their differences, portray thought to be essentially linguistic in nature. This account of thought cannot accommodate findings of complex, intelligent behaviors displayed by the aforementioned non-linguistic creatures. In chapter 3, Bermudez evaluates the position that these intelligent behaviors can be driven by special perceptual capacities of those creatures, and there is no need to attribute thought to them. He argues that such a position cannot adequately explain the behavior of those creatures.

Over chapters 4-7, Bermudez presents his positive account of non-linguistic thought. This happens in 3 phases. First, he must clarify the ontology of the world apprehended by a non-linguistic creature, in order to determine the structure of thoughts that could be had by such a creature. Second, Bermudez gives an account of the structure of non-linguistic thought; it displays two dimensions, the mode of presentation and object, and is thus capable of decompositionality and generality. Third, Bermudez shows that non-linguistic thought, given those two fundamental features, is capable of undergoing proto-inferential operations (e.g., negation; conditional reasoning).

In the last two chapters, Bermudez analyzes the limitations of non-linguistic thought, and examines the essentially different capacities of linguistic and non-linguistic thought. Particularly, language is required to have meta-thinking, or thoughts about other thoughts, and this basic capacity is necessary to engage in reasoning that involves proper logical operators (which, in turn, is necessary to detailedly infer the mental states of others on the basis of their behavior; to monitor one's own activities and make adjustments according to outcomes; and more). But Bermudez shows that non-linguistic thought is nonetheless capable of some of these functions, though in etiolated ways. Overall, he shows there are more possibilities of forms of cognitive life than intelligent, linguistic creatures (us humans) and dumb, unthinking creatures (non-human organisms). Our capacities of rationality are in fact grounded in, or are evolved from, already intelligent non-linguistic modes of thought available to many non-human animals.

I was initially very attracted to the aims of Bermudez's project. But for the outcomes, not as much. I am not convinced that Bermudez can call the sort of non-linguistic thought that he proposes "thought" at all. Despite its projective capabilities (i.e., non-linguistic thought can be about desired situations that have not yet been actualized), such thought is nonetheless tethered to the immediate environment and practical context. I do not see why this type of thought shouldn't be just called "perception," especially because Bermudez admits that perception can register higher-level properties (which are capable of presenting non-physically-actual contents). Also, going into the book, I thought Bermudez might address whether linguistic creatures can have non-linguistic thoughts, and whether the former's linguistic capacities could transform or expand the possibilities of such thought. This question is outside the author's scope.

Nonetheless, Bermudez gave me a good starting point of how to begin to think about the possibilities of non-linguistic rationality. He explained his methodology and showed the major concerns that must be addressed by anyone who embarks on projects as his. He maintains a strong epistemological focus throughout the book; he continuously questions how it is possible to identify features of non-linguistic thought, given that we are not those sorts of animals and have radically different experiences than theirs. Bermudez inevitably appeals to behavior and examines which theoretical entities are necessary to provide adequate explanations of such behavior. Such grounds are shaky, but it seems to be the best anyone can do; I wonder, though, whether there could be other means of getting at knowledge about such unexperienceable phenomena.

This book overall is an excellent example of how philosophy and science ought to be synthesized. Bermudez holds himself accountable to empirical findings regarding his explanandum, and he uses his philosophical tools to ask deeper questions about those findings, than any science could ask, and to arrive at answers. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in questions such as: Do thoughts have to come in the form of language? What kinds of thoughts and reasoning capacities do non-human animals have? What methodologies could allow us to go about investigating these questions?

[Larry · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star for making such an engrossing topic so insanely dull.