As I already said, I don't favour talking about the "content" of thought in the absence of language — Janus
We can take good account of thought/belief from it's earliest stages through it's most complex by virtue of taking account of it's content. All we need know is what our thought/belief consists in/of combined with a reasonable conception of what non and/or prelinguistic thought/belief must not consist in/of in order to be rightfully called non and/or pre-linguistic, along with what it must consist of to be sensibly, rightfully called "thought", "belief", "thinking", and/or "believing". — creativesoul
To convince me that you can know how and what animals think you would need to outline how you think this can be done... — Janus
I know what I think because I can represent it symbolically — Janus
Are you claiming that we cannot know what the content of non linguistic thought/belief is because those creatures do not have language? — creativesoul
I am saying that I can see no way to know what non-linguistic creatures' thinking consists in. By contrast, we know that linguistic creatures' thinking consists in language, or at least that it is expressible in language and thus comes to have determinate content. But it is not as though we determine some "content" of what we think and then translate that "content" into language; the expression of thinking in language just is the determination of its content. Put another the way the content of thought is inseparable form its symbolic expression. — Janus
Could you be wrong about this? — creativesoul
1.Are we agreeing that the thinking/believing creature cannot state it's own thought/belief?
2.Are we agreeing that the thought/belief of a pre-linguistic creature cannot be in propositional form — Janus
Do we also agree that all creatures' thought/belief(thinking/believing) begin(s) simply within some reasonably determinable time frame - after biological conception - and grows in it's complexity?
— creativesoul
Yes, I agree to that. :grin: — Janus
As a aside which I think is relevant; when people ask me why I write, I usually tell them "to find out how and what I think"... — Janus
Non linguistic thought/belief must consist of something that is evolutionarily amenable to propositions, assertions, and statements. It must be able to evolve and grow in it's complexity. Any and all accounts of thought/belief must be amenable to evolutionary terms. — creativesoul
Yours is not. It has all the earmarks of conventional mistakes. Don't take that personally. You trusted the wrong people. I think you already know this. I mean, you're continually qualifying your remarks by stating stuff like we cannot get into the minds of animals. The whole fait accompli aspect...
You know the account you've adopted is not quite right.
Firstly assuming that symbolic thought evolved from non-symbolic thought, says nothing about the determinability of the latter. — Janus
Yes, I do say that we cannot get into the minds of animals: do you actually disagree with that, and if so, on what grounds? — Janus
And if you want to impute "mistakes" to my thinking then the onus is on you to clearly identify them and explain just what it is you believe is mistaken and how and in relation to what you think it is mistaken. Vague generalization and gesturing will not suffice to convince me. — Janus
There are better ways to acquire knowledge of what all thought/belief consists of.
The sheer number of things I've written that have been sorely neglected is continually rising. Do you really want to know what pre-linguistic thought/belief consists of? — creativesoul
1.Are we agreeing that the thinking/believing creature cannot state it's own thought/belief?
2.Are we agreeing that the thought/belief of a pre-linguistic creature cannot be in propositional form — Janus
Do we also agree that all creatures' thought/belief(thinking/believing) begin(s) simply within some reasonably determinable time frame - after biological conception - and grows in it's complexity?
— creativesoul
Yes, I agree to that. :grin: — Janus
I am not comfortable with speaking about "content" of "pre-linguistic thought/ belief". I would instead speak about 'the process of pre-linguistic believing' or something along those lines.
Could you re-phrase this? What is the referent of "the believing"? The process of thought/belief formation? The 'act' of thought/belief formation?
We can definitely state what the content of pre-linguistic thought/belief is.
Do we still agree?
— creativesoul
As above, for me the referent of "the believing" would be the process or act of believing. I don't feel comfortable with referring to believing in that context as "thought/ belief formation". It may not be problematic, but I think it could be misleading, and I think "believing" is a perfectly sufficient term in any case, and that using a different term when referring to pre-linguistic contexts may help to avoid anthropomorphization and any confusion that might ensue from that. In other words I don't see any advantage, and perhaps no inevitable disadvantage, but I do see possible disadvantages, to be had in referring to the act of believing as an act of "belief formation" when speaking about a pre-linguistic context. — Janus
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