For example, I would think that a general practitioner would have trouble within his field if he did not hold the language to be able to specify what, in particular, was wrong with a patient, even if he knew what it was. Or could he not even be able to understand, say, that a patient was having a heart attack if he did not have the words for it?
The second idea is called strong Sapir Worpf hypothesis. It doesn’t seem to be true.
When you talk about rationality it’s still highly useful to distinguish between aliefs and beliefs. There are probably plenty of people out there who don’t make that mental distinction.
Having different words makes it easier to learn to make the mental distinction.
It also makes it easier to remember thoughts about the mental distinction. Both natural remembering and constructed remembering via Anki.
Some people can think clearly without having words in their mind, and tend to assume that of course thought is possible without language. Other people can’t think at all without words, and tend to assume that of course language is required for thought.
There’s also a philosophical literature on ‘thought without language’ that I’ve never got to grips with, and the associated pop-philosophy stuff that’s even harder to make sense of.
The second idea is called strong Sapir Worpf hypothesis. It doesn’t seem to be true.
Take a word like aunt. It includes the sister of your mother but it also includes the wife of her brother. Obviously you can separate the two mentally even if you don’t have separate words. http://conlangery.com/2013/07/29/conlangery-92-the-sapir-worf-hypothesis/ is a nice podcast that describes it’s state.
When you talk about rationality it’s still highly useful to distinguish between aliefs and beliefs. There are probably plenty of people out there who don’t make that mental distinction. Having different words makes it easier to learn to make the mental distinction.
It also makes it easier to remember thoughts about the mental distinction. Both natural remembering and constructed remembering via Anki.
Also, I strongly suspect there are typical mind fallacy effects at work here.
Some people can think clearly without having words in their mind, and tend to assume that of course thought is possible without language. Other people can’t think at all without words, and tend to assume that of course language is required for thought.
There’s also a philosophical literature on ‘thought without language’ that I’ve never got to grips with, and the associated pop-philosophy stuff that’s even harder to make sense of.
Whether or not you need words is an empirical question. That question was investigated pretty thoroughly in linguistics.
I don’t have to extrapolate from what I think about my own mind but can extrapolate from empirical research.