Editing Thought (section)

===Inner speech theory===
Inner speech theories claim that thinking is a form of [[inner speech]].<ref name="Crowell"/><ref name="Harman4"/><ref name="Langland-Hassan">{{cite book |last1=Langland-Hassan |first1=Peter |last2=Vicente |first2=Agustin |title=Inner Speech: New Voices |date=2018 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/LANISN |chapter=Introduction}}</ref><ref name="BritannicaThought"/> This view is sometimes termed ''psychological nominalism''.<ref name="BorchertThinking"/> It states that thinking involves silently evoking words and connecting them to form mental sentences. The knowledge a person has of their thoughts can be explained as a form of overhearing one's own silent monologue.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roessler |first1=Johannes |title=Thinking, Inner Speech, and Self-Awareness |journal=Review of Philosophy and Psychology |date=2016 |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=541–557 |doi=10.1007/s13164-015-0267-y |s2cid=15028459 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/ROETIS-2}}</ref> Three central aspects are often ascribed to inner speech: it is in an important sense similar to hearing sounds, it involves the use of language and it constitutes a motor plan that could be used for actual speech.<ref name="Langland-Hassan"/> This connection to language is supported by the fact that thinking is often accompanied by muscle activity in the speech organs. This activity may facilitate thinking in certain cases but is not necessary for it in general.<ref name="BritannicaThought"/> According to some accounts, thinking happens not in a regular language, like English or French, but has its own type of language with the corresponding symbols and syntax. This theory is known as the [[language of thought hypothesis]].<ref name="Harman4">{{cite book |last1=Harman |first1=Gilbert |title=Thought |date=1973 |publisher=Princeton University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HART |chapter=4. Thought and meaning}}</ref><ref name="RescorlaLOTH">{{cite web |last1=Rescorla |first1=Michael |title=The Language of Thought Hypothesis |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=18 October 2021 |date=2019}}</ref>

Inner speech theory has a strong initial plausibility since introspection suggests that indeed many thoughts are accompanied by inner speech. But its opponents usually contend that this is not true for all types of thinking.<ref name="BorchertThinking"/><ref name="Nida-rümelin">{{cite journal |last1=Nida-rümelin |first1=Martine |title=Thinking Without Language. A Phenomenological Argument for Its Possibility and Existence |journal=Grazer Philosophische Studien |date=2010 |volume=81 |issue=1 |pages=55–75 |doi=10.1163/9789042030190_005 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/NIDTWL}}</ref><ref name="Bermudez">{{cite book |last1=Bermudez |first1=Jose Luis |title=Thinking Without Words |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/LUITWW}}</ref> It has been argued, for example, that forms of daydreaming constitute non-linguistic thought.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lohmar |first1=Dieter |editor1-first=Dan |editor1-last=Zahavi |title=Language and non-linguistic thinking |journal=The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology |date= 2012 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594900.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-959490-0 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594900.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199594900-e-19 |language=en}}</ref> This issue is relevant to the question of whether animals have the capacity to think. If thinking is necessarily tied to language then this would suggest that there is an important gap between humans and animals since only humans have a sufficiently complex language. But the existence of non-linguistic thoughts suggests that this gap may not be that big and that some animals do indeed think.<ref name="Bermudez"/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Andrews |first1=Kristin |last2=Monsó |first2=Susana |title=Animal Cognition: 3.4 Thought |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognition-animal/#Thou |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=25 October 2021 |date=2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Premack |first1=David |title=Human and animal cognition: Continuity and discontinuity |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=28 August 2007 |volume=104 |issue=35 |pages=13861–13867 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0706147104 |pmid=17717081 |pmc=1955772 |bibcode=2007PNAS..10413861P |language=en |issn=0027-8424|doi-access=free }}</ref>

====Language of thought hypothesis====
There are various theories about the relation between language and thought. One prominent version in contemporary philosophy is called the [[language of thought hypothesis]].<ref name="Harman4"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Katz">{{cite web |last1=Katz |first1=Matthew |title=Language of Thought Hypothesis |url=https://iep.utm.edu/lot-hypo/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=27 October 2021}}</ref><ref name="Aydede">{{cite web |last1=Aydede |first1=Murat |title=Oxford Bibliographies: Language of Thought |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0151.xml |access-date=27 October 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Fodor |first1=Jerry A. |title=Lot 2: The Language of Thought Revisited |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/FODLT}}</ref> It states that thinking happens in the medium of a mental language. This language, often referred to as ''Mentalese'', is similar to regular languages in various respects: it is composed of words that are connected to each other in syntactic ways to form sentences.<ref name="Harman4"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Katz"/><ref name="Aydede"/> This claim does not merely rest on an intuitive analogy between language and thought. Instead, it provides a clear definition of the features a representational system has to embody in order to have a linguistic structure.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Aydede"/> On the level of syntax, the representational system has to possess two types of representations: atomic and compound representations. Atomic representations are basic whereas compound representations are constituted either by other compound representations or by atomic representations.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Aydede"/> On the level of semantics, the semantic content or the meaning of the compound representations should depend on the semantic contents of its constituents. A representational system is linguistically structured if it fulfills these two requirements.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Aydede"/>

The language of thought hypothesis states that the same is true for thinking in general. This would mean that thought is composed of certain atomic representational constituents that can be combined as described above.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="BorchertLanguageOfThought">{{cite book |last1=Borchert |first1=Donald |title=Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition |date=2006 |publisher=Macmillan |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/language-thought |chapter=Language of thought}}</ref> Apart from this abstract characterization, no further concrete claims are made about how human thought is implemented by the brain or which other similarities to natural language it has.<ref name="Katz"/> The language of thought hypothesis was first introduced by [[Jerry Fodor]].<ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Katz"/> He argues in favor of this claim by holding that it constitutes the best explanation of the characteristic features of thinking. One of these features is ''productivity'': a system of representations is ''productive'' if it can generate an infinite number of unique representations based on a low number of atomic representations.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="BorchertLanguageOfThought"/> This applies to thought since human beings are capable of entertaining an infinite number of distinct thoughts even though their mental capacities are quite limited. Other characteristic features of thinking include ''systematicity'' and ''inferential coherence''.<ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Katz"/><ref name="BorchertLanguageOfThought"/> Fodor argues that the language of thought hypothesis is true as it explains how thought can have these features and because there is no good alternative explanation.<ref name="Katz"/> Some arguments against the language of thought hypothesis are based on neural networks, which are able to produce intelligent behavior without depending on representational systems. Other objections focus on the idea that some mental representations happen non-linguistically, for example, in the form of maps or images.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/>

Computationalists have been especially interested in the language of thought hypothesis since it provides ways to close the gap between thought in the human brain and computational processes implemented by computers.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/><ref name="Milkowski"/> The reason for this is that processes over representations that respect syntax and semantics, like [[inference]]s according to the [[modus ponens]], can be implemented by physical systems using causal relations. The same linguistic systems may be implemented through different material systems, like brains or computers. In this way, computers can ''think''.<ref name="Katz"/><ref name="RescorlaLOTH"/>