Language: The rise of thoughts.

Thoughts are the material in which we construct the working frameworks of the mind. It is through thoughts that we maintain a state of being. But what are thoughts? Philosophers since antiquity have attributed language, or the logos, as the material of thought. Heidegger said “Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.” Surely there is much more to thoughts that language.

Language is simply a vehicle for expression. While we think in thoughts, we have been habituated from birth to utilize language in order to express our thoughts containing needs and desires. As a child we had thoughts but could not communicate. Children must develop language in order to adapt socially for survival. If man were not social, what need would there be for language? Language would be a nonexistent concept since communication would be nonexistent. Would we be animals? The social component is what gave rise to language. From an evolutionary position, this capacity for language became a necessity for survival, thus gradually developing into the sophisticated language capacities we use today. Is there an a priori that guides language? It seems that this a priori is a formal relation in which thoughts exist. If we objectively look at words, we see that they offer no direction, no rhyme or reasonable order. These relations are cultural inheritances.

Are thoughts reducible? Even thoughts are reducible to sensations, drives and feelings. These sensations are purely subjective, and one in the same with the mind, fully constituting your state of being. It is only when these feelings can be objectified and stratified that we can functionally gain control of our internal world. The objectification of sensations is what leads to the rise of language. As we become conditioned to the various sensations from varying standpoints we form distinctions.

Thoughts are simply markers, or words, we use to distinguish sensations. The interrelation of these markers prompts the creation of new sensations and leads to the fabrication of new markers. This phenomenon is what Derrida wrote on in his essay On Positions.