Talking our way to systematicity

Abstract

Do we think in a language-like format? Taking the marker of language-like formats to be the property of unconstrained systematicity, this paper considers the following master argument for the claim that we do: (1) language is unconstrainedly systematic, (2) if language is unconstrainedly systematic then so is thought, (3) so thought is unconstrainedly systematic. It is easy to feel that there is something right about this argument, that there will be some way of filling in its details that will vindicate the idea that our thought must be unconstrainedly systematic given that the language in which we express it is. Clearly, however, the second premise needs support—we need a principled reason for moving from the unconstrained systematicity of language to the unconstrained systematicity of thought. This paper gives three passes at formulating such a principle. This turns out to be much harder than it might seem. We should, I conclude, resist falling too easily for the lure of this master argument for the language-like format of thought.