On the Very Idea of Thinking in Words

Abstract

The common view of thought as a kind of inner speech, whether in a natural language or in some other language-like representational system, gains much of its intuitive force from the introspective evidence of what appears to be thinking in words. Presumably, silent uttering is a way of thinking something in the same way that vocal uttering is a way of asserting something. But upon closer examination this analogy does not hold up, and the very idea of thinking in words turns out to be conceptually confused