Language and Thinking

There is a circular argument about the manner in which language limits thinking.   The argument that our ability to think is limited by vocabulary is used to suggest that we cannot understand anything we do not have words to describe, but the counterargument is that we have the demonstrated ability to coin terms to describe things for which our vocabulary is insufficient.

It must be acknowledged that we are unable to gain knowledge that cannot be articulated through second hand-experience. That is, if we gain information about something from another person, in speech or in writing, then the other person is only able to communicate knowledge for which he can convey by means of words.  Our ability to receive information depends on his ability to send it, and his ability to send it depends on his skill in communicating.

So it must likely be conceded that we cannot gain second-hand knowledge of anything if our own language skills and those of the source are inadequate to communicating a specific bit of information.   But this does not mean that understanding is limited in a general manner: knowledge proceeds language, and is not derived from it.

First-hand experience defies this limitation because the information we receive is not limited to the verbal channel.   For example, there are sensory experiences that we remember and develop an understanding of, but cannot consider verbally - there are no "words in our mind" while we experience a sensation - and which cannot be adequately described to us by anyone else.   While ineffable, it is a sense-memory impression that becomes for us a part of our mental model of a thing, and in some instances quite an important one.

As an aside, this also addresses the notions about intuition or extrasensory perception.  There is to date no method of describing how these processes work, but it is plain that there are sensations that we have that are ineffable.  So to "sense" something is likely to have knowledge that cannot be articulated.  It is well within the range of sensory perception, but beyond our ability to verbalize.

It is not uncommon to notice that someone is adept at something but cannot explain it.   Ask an old person who is able to routinely select the best produce in the market how she does it, and she is likely to say that she "just knows" from having done it so many times.  That is to say, she possesses knowledge but not the ability to convey it in words.

We have the same experience when, after concentrating intensely upon a problem and failing to find a solution, it seems to "pop" into our minds when we stop trying to think about it.   Our mind is able to make connections that we cannot describe in words, and by leveraging this unspoken and unspeakable knowledge, we are able to derive a solution.   It is not that we were not thinking about it, simply that we ceased limiting our mind to our language.

Another example is the difficulty we have in describing an experience to others sufficiently.  We often find we cannot do so.   Consider how you might describe the flavor of a pear to someone who has never tasted one - it is impossible to do with sufficient accuracy that they would confidently know upon tasting one that it is the same thing you had described.

Language, therefore, is a tool of communicating thought, but not the stuff of which thoughts are made.  A great deal of confusion and misunderstanding comes of failure to make that distinction.