[Language and thought]

Abstract

Mixing, however briefly, with aphasic subjects is sufficient to show that though survives language alterations. Everyone's experience of forgetting proper names and common nouns clearly shows that concepts outlive words. Analyzing puns and allusions also reveals that the meaning of a word depends on a context of signification which may or may not be supplied verbally. Studying thought without language in both animals and infants provides evidence not only that language facilitates the exercise of cognitive functions but also that the initial progress facilitates the exercise of cognitive functions but also that the initial progress made by children is not related to language but to brain maturation. Dealing with the question of right hemisphere performance in patients with a brain split by callosotomy demonstrates, better than anything else, that each position taken on this question is underlain by philosophical presuppositions. In contradistinction with philosophies derived from that of Wittgenstein and from logical positivism and functionalist cognitivist theories, the author argues that all we know is through and within our thought, that all we say is thought and that, consequently, no scientific, philosophical, poetical or other discourse is able to apprehend or restrain thought. Thought extends far beyond language, including scientific language.