serial processor, and providing it with the majority of its contents. One
variant of this idea is Dennett’s (1991a) vision of the conscious mind as a
Joycean machine, according to which it is the colonisation of the brain
bymemes(ideas, concepts – mostly borne by natural language lexical
items) which utterly transforms the brain’s powers and capacities. An-
other variant is Bickerton’s (1990, 1995) idea that the evolution of
language involved a massive re-organisation of the neural connectivity
of the brain, in such a way as to support conceptualised thought for the
Wrst time. On either of these views, it is not justconsciousand/orexplicit
conceptual thought which is dependent upon language, but rather it is
the very capacity for conceptual thought as such which involves lan-
guage.Cognitive scientists have, in general, barely considered (1) – presumably on
the grounds that it is a peripheral aspect of human cognition – although
they would mostly concede its truth. And they have mostly rejected (4), on
the grounds that it is overly extreme, unjustiWably down-playing the
cognitive powers of young children and other animals. Hypotheses (2) and
(3), insofar as they are ever considered, are generally conXated with (4) and
rejected for that reason. We shall begin to discuss the strengths and
weaknesses of these theses in the sections which follow. This discussion
must inevitably be tentative and exploratory, given the extent to which the
questions are under-researched. Our hope will be to convince our readers
that there are issues here worthy of further inter-disciplinary investigation.
3.2 Linguistic scaVoldingEveryone should agree that natural language is a necessary condition for
human beings to be capable of entertaining at least some kinds of thought.
For language is, at least, the conduit through which we acquire many of
our beliefs and concepts, and in many of these cases we could hardly have
acquired the component concepts in any other way. So concepts which
have emerged out of many years of collective labour by scientists – such as
electron,neutrino, andDNA– wouldde factobe inaccessible to someone
deprived of language. This much, at any rate, should be obvious. But all it
really shows is that language isrequired forcertain kinds of thought; not
that language is actuallyinvolved inor is therepresentational vehicle of
those thoughts.
It is often remarked that the linguistic and cognitive abilities of young
children will normally develop together. If children’s language is advanced,
then so will be their abilities across a range of tasks; and if children’s
language is delayed, then so will be their cognitive abilities. To cite just one
212 Forms of representation