So Dennett can allow that hominids were capable of highly sophis-
ticated social interactions prior to the appearance of language and the
Joycean machine. In which case such hominids might have beeninter-
pretable asengaging in higher-order thought, from the standpoint of the
Intentional Stance (see chapter 2 above). But this would not have been
enoughactuallyto transform the contents of these hominids’ experiences
in such a way as to render them phenomenally conscious – only the
availability of experience to real(realistically construed) higher-order
thought could do that. And this, in Dennett’s view, had to wait upon the
arrival of natural language and the stream of inner speech.
The question to be answered, then, in choosing between dispositionalist
HOT-theory and dispositionalist HOD-theory (choice-point (6) inWgure
9.1), is whether or not structured, discrete, higher-order thoughts are
independent of language. If they are, then we shall have decisive reason to
prefer HOT-theory to HOD-theory, it seems to us.
3.9 The independence of HOTs from languageThe very same ‘tracking argument’ which we outlined in chapter 8 above
applies – indeed, appliespar excellence– to our capacity for higher-order
thoughts (HOTs), strongly suggesting that our mind-reading faculty is so
set up as to represent, process, and generate structured representations of
the mental states of ourselves and other people. Then on the assumption
that a mind-reading faculty would have been in place prior to the evolution
of natural language, and/or that it can remain intact in modern humans in
the absence of language, we get the conclusion that HOTs (realistically
construed) are independent of language.
The central task of the mind-reading faculty is to work out and remem-
ber who thinks what, who wants what, who feels what, and how diVerent
people are likely to reason and respond in a wide variety of circumstances.
And all these representations have to be continually adapted and updated.
It is very hard indeed to see how this task could be executed, except by
operating with structured representations, elements of which stand for
individuals, and elements of which stand for their mental properties; so
that the latter can be varied and altered while keeping track of one and the
same individual.
How plausible is it that such structured representations are independent
of natural language? Many theories of the evolution of language – es-
pecially those falling within a broadly Gricean tradition – presuppose that
they are (Origgi and Sperber, forthcoming). On these accounts, language
began with hominids using arbitrary ‘one-oV’ signals to communicate with
one another, requiring them to go in for elaborate higher-order reasoning
concerning one another’s beliefs and intentions. On a contrasting view, it is
Cognitivist theories 269