Creative aspect of language use

Descartes makes only scant reference to language in his writings.

He did a careful and intensive study of the limits of mechanical explanation. This carried him beyond physics to physiology and psychology.

He became convinced that an animal is an automaton.5

This led to an important and influential system of speculative physiology.

He concluded that man has unique abilities that cannot be accounted for on purely mechanistic grounds, though human bodily function and behavior is explained mechanistically.

The essential difference between man and animal is exhibited most clearly by human language. Man can form new statements which express new thoughts and which are appropriate to new situations.

He thinks that we can think of a machine that can utters words. But it is not conceivable that such a machine should produce different arrangements of words so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer as the dullest of men can do. (CSM I, 39)6

This ability to use language must not be confused with “natural movements which express passions and which can be imitated by machines as well as by animals.”

The crucial difference is that automata “could never use words or put together other signs as we do in order to declare our thoughts for others.”

This is a specific human ability, independent of intelligence.

Thus, there are no men so dull-witted or stupid who cannot arrange words together in order to make their thoughts understood.

But no animal can do this. (CSM I, 39–40)

This difference is not caused by peripheral physiological differences. Animals are not incapable of language because they lack the necessary organs.

Magpies and parrots can utter words, yet they cannot speak as we do. They cannot show that they are thinking what they are saying.

On the other hand, men born deaf and dumb can invent their own signs to make themselves understood*.

Therefore, man has unique type of intellectual organization that allows the “creative aspect” of ordinary language use.

Thus Descartes maintains that human language is the effect of the free expression of thought.

This makes Descartes conclude that the human mind is different from those of animals.

• The mind is a substance whose essence is thought.

This substance is the “creative principle” alongside the “mechanical principle” that accounts for bodily function.

• Human reason “is a universal instrument which can serve for all contingencies”
• Whereas the organs of an animal or machine “need some special adaptation for any particular action.”9

In Descartes’ letter to the Marquis of Newcastle (1646), he asserts that our external actions show that our body contains a soul with thoughts.

The final condition is added to exclude “cries of joy or sadness and the like” as well as “whatever can be taught by training to animals.” (CSMK, 303)11

He writes that:

• all men use human language to express his thoughts
• no animal can use a sign to express to other animals*
  • He uses this as proof that animals have no thoughts

This is written in a 1649 letter to Henry More:

I think that animals lack thought because no animal has used real speech using a word or sign that relates to thought alone and not to natural impulse.

All human beings use words or signs no matter how stupid and insane they may be.

Descartes assigns mind only to humans because of:

• the diversity of human behavior
• its appropriateness to new situations
• man’s capacity to innovate
  • This is shown by the creative aspect of language use

He regards this capacity as beyond the limitations of any imaginable mechanism.

Thus a proper psychology requires a “creative principle” alongside the “mechanical principle” that accounts for:

• all other aspects of the inanimate and animate world and
• a significant range of human actions and “passions”.

In an interesting study by Cordemoy, Descartes wanted to know if there were other minds other than the human.

His best evidence is from speech.

Cordemoy argues that there can be no mechanistic explanation for the novelty, coherence, and relevance of normal speech.*

He emphasizes the innovative aspect of intelligent performance.

Cordemoy consistently maintains that the “experiments” that reveal the limitations of mechanical explanation are those which involve the use of language.

Care must be exercised in using ability to speak as evidence for the inadequacy of mechanistic explanation.

It is only the ability to innovate, and to do so in a way which is appropriate to novel situations and which yields coherent discourse, that provides crucial evidence.

Possible types of experiment are then outlined.

For example, one can construct new “conventional signs” that others can agree with.

Thus, … the new thoughts that come through our conversations with other men are a sure sign to all of us that they have a mind like ours; (p. 185)

The “experiments” that reveal the limitations of mechanical explanation are those which involve the use of language.

Cordemoy is working completely within the framework of Cartesian assumptions.