“Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.”

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

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“The characteristic role of language with respect to thought is not to create a material phonic means for expressing ideas but to serve as a link between thought and sound,”

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 112
Context: The characteristic role of language with respect to thought is not to create a material phonic means for expressing ideas but to serve as a link between thought and sound, under conditions that of necessity bring about the reciprocal delimitations of units. Thought, chaotic by nature, has to become ordered in the process of its decomposition. Neither are thoughts given material form nor are sounds transformed into mental entities; the somewhat mysterious fact is rather that "thought-sound" implies division, and that language works out its units while taking shape between two shapeless masses. Visualize the air in contact with a sheet of water; if the atmospheric pressure changes, the surface of the water will be broken up into a series of divisions, waves; the waves resemble the union or coupling of thought with phonic substance.

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“Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought”

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“A programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of.”

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“Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.”

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 111-112
Source: Course in General Linguistics
Context: Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. Philosophers and linguists have always agreed in recognizing that without the help of signs we would be unable to make a clear-cut, consistent distinction between two ideas. Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula. here are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language.

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