(If people really cared about teaching people how to think, they’d teach cognitive psychology, probability and statistics, game theory, and the like, not stuff like Latin.)
I expect you’re typical-minding here. I know enough linguistics enthusiasts who feel that learning new languages makes you think in new ways that I believe that to be their genuine experience. Also because I personally find a slight difference in the way I think in different languages, though not as pronounced as those people.
Presumably they, being familiar with the thought-changing effects of Latin but not having felt the language-changing effects of cognitive psychology etc. (either because of not having studied those topics enough, or because of not having a mind whose thought patterns would be strongly affected by the study of them), would likewise say “if people really cared about teaching people how to think, they’d teach Latin and not stuff like cognitive psychology”. Just like you say what you say, either because of not having studied Latin enough, or because of not having a mind whose thought patterns would be strongly affected by the study of languages.
I know enough linguistics enthusiasts who feel that learning new languages makes you think in new ways that I believe that to be their genuine experience. Also because I personally find a slight difference in the way I think in different languages, though not as pronounced as those people.
Sure, but the same happens with living languages as well.
not having studied Latin enough
I studied Latin for five years. Sure, it is possible that if I had studied it longer it would have changed my thought patterns more, but surely there are cheaper ways of doing that. (Even the first couple months of studying linear algebra affected me more, but I don’t expect that to apply to everybody so I didn’t list it upthread.)
I expect you’re typical-minding here. I know enough linguistics enthusiasts who feel that learning new languages makes you think in new ways that I believe that to be their genuine experience. Also because I personally find a slight difference in the way I think in different languages, though not as pronounced as those people.
Presumably they, being familiar with the thought-changing effects of Latin but not having felt the language-changing effects of cognitive psychology etc. (either because of not having studied those topics enough, or because of not having a mind whose thought patterns would be strongly affected by the study of them), would likewise say “if people really cared about teaching people how to think, they’d teach Latin and not stuff like cognitive psychology”. Just like you say what you say, either because of not having studied Latin enough, or because of not having a mind whose thought patterns would be strongly affected by the study of languages.
Sure, but the same happens with living languages as well.
I studied Latin for five years. Sure, it is possible that if I had studied it longer it would have changed my thought patterns more, but surely there are cheaper ways of doing that. (Even the first couple months of studying linear algebra affected me more, but I don’t expect that to apply to everybody so I didn’t list it upthread.)