Problems and Mysteries of the Many Languages of Thought

Eric Mandelbaum; Yarrow Dunham; Roman Feiman; Chaz Firestone; E J Green; Daniel Harris; Melissa M Kibbe; Benedek Kurdi; Myrto Mylopoulos; Joshua Shepherd; Alexis Wellwood; Nicolas Porot; Jake Quilty-Dunn

doi:10.1111/cogs.13225

Problems and Mysteries of the Many Languages of Thought

Cogn Sci. 2022 Dec;46(12):e13225. doi: 10.1111/cogs.13225.

Authors

Eric Mandelbaum^{1

2}, Yarrow Dunham³, Roman Feiman⁴, Chaz Firestone⁵, E J Green⁶, Daniel Harris⁷, Melissa M Kibbe⁸, Benedek Kurdi³, Myrto Mylopoulos⁹, Joshua Shepherd^{10

11}, Alexis Wellwood¹², Nicolas Porot¹³, Jake Quilty-Dunn¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Philosophy, Baruch College.
² Departments of Philosophy & Psychology, CUNY Graduate Center.
³ Department of Psychology, Yale University.
⁴ Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University.
⁵ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University.
⁶ Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
⁷ Department of Philosophy, Hunter College & CUNY Graduate Center.
⁸ Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University.
⁹ Departments of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Carleton University.
¹⁰ Department of Philosophy, Carleton College.
¹¹ Department of Philosophy, University of Barcelona.
¹² School of Philosophy, University of Southern California.
¹³ Africa Institute for Research in Economics and Social Sciences, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University.
¹⁴ Department of Philosophy & Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, Washington University in St Louis.

PMID: 36537721
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13225

Abstract

"What is the structure of thought?" is as central a question as any in cognitive science. A classic answer to this question has appealed to a Language of Thought (LoT). We point to emerging research from disparate branches of the field that supports the LoT hypothesis, but also uncovers diversity in LoTs across cognitive systems, stages of development, and species. Our letter formulates open research questions for cognitive science concerning the varieties of rules and representations that underwrite various LoT-based systems and how these variations can help researchers taxonomize cognitive systems.

Keywords: Comparative psychology; Concepts; Developmental psychology; Evolution; Inference; Language of Thought; Mental representation; Reasoning; Vision science.

MeSH terms

Cognitive Science*
Humans
Language*