Philosophy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for those interested in the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
A question is perplexing me recently: whether our thoughts are dependent on voices , or in another word, can we have any thoughts without voices?
Hegel remarks:'The voice comes very close to thought.' So, what is further required to let voices in our mind qualified as thoughts?
Are there some related books or articles I can refer to?
Interesting question. I don't have any books or references for you - apart from general pointers to Lacans Mirror; and Buddist dependent co-arising.
Lacan would probably say that it is through his Mirror mechanism. That is one has mirrored the voice(s) speaking to you, and internalised it.
By this, to think of the voice within us, as itself; as I; without how we became is probably the wrong approach; we should look to our own personal genealogy;
corollary: hearing voices as in forms of psychosis is a loosening or weakening of this mechanism; the mirroring dialectic without an external voice to condition it; the voice of the Mother, the voice of compassion; that is the voice of the world. Solitary confinement, as a form of punishment, is exactly this.
One can speculate, that the world is also mirrored in us physically; we open our eyes, we see; we see a world that is but what is there; this mirror is in our genealogy, not personally, as such, but in our evolutionary genealogy; the mirroring occurring through millenia.
Corollary: Visual hallucinations are a loosening of this mirroring; the world, that is nature, our second womb, becomes alien & strange; it withdraws; or is forced to withdraw - again the regime of punishment that is solitary confinement.
In Mahayana Buddhism, which denies essences (svabhava); would deny that the voice within us, is an essence; that is wholly itself without dependence; it is a 'nothing' in this sense; it is itself through dependent co-rising (Pratītyasamutpāda -प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद); and thus our voice is the trace of all voices before us, if not the future.
(Both readings, are on only the slightest of acquaintences with either philosophy).
Definitely! There is a genre of works primarily in etymology, textual analysis, and media studies known as "primary orality."
Among the great scholars in this field are Walter Ong and Eric Havelock, both contemporaries of and collaborators with Marshall McLuhan.The best starting text is "The Muse Learns to Write" by Havelock, brief and fascinating.
These works present what might be called a hermeneutics of punctuated equilibria.The shift to writing is the crisis giving rise to the Platonic tradition. The well-known aversion to representational media in Plato or "logocentrism" as described by Derrida are analyzed through the actual recorded shift from voice to text.These scholars are aware of Derrida, but somewhat antithetical to his thesis, without really engaging at the same level.
Interestingly, all of these thinkers, according to Havelock, were led into their studies by the shockingly powerful effects of radio in WWII, as utilized by Hitler, Churchill, FDR, and others of that period.
Even if you want something more "cognitive-science" based, I believe these are essential works and an excellent platform for wherever this interest takes you.
I would also note, as an aside, that "voice" is a priori rationality, in that it is the basis of "ratios" in utero prior to birth. Personally, only an opinion, I find this an intriguing link to Pythagorean (octaval) and then Platonic (formal) concepts of anamnesis.
Postscript. I would add one more point on this intriguing subject. As is well known, Socrates, like Jesus and Buddha, did not write. His "wisdom tradition" traces its ancestry back to the intoxicated "voices" of the Delphic oracle and his daemonic "inner voice." Why? There is another reason, aside from devaluation of "representation," to discount the "written" voice. It is impossible for linguists and archeologists to translate ancient "writing" as pure visual symbols. There is no purely ideographic writing. The text must somehow be linked to a language that is linked to a "spoken" language for the "meanings" to be translated. If there is no link to voice, breath, or Pneuma, as with Linear A, then the language becomes truly "dead" and its meanings cannot be revived. The transmission of "ratios" and "rationality," especially in the Pythagorean traditions, is deeply based in "resonating" with "others."
You might find interesting Trigant Burrow's "Preconscious Foundations of Human Experience", (1964).
One of his observations was that language, i.e. voices, are late additions to human interaction, in evolutionary terms. He contends that the artificiality language imposes messes up people's intuition and then their general equilibrium. It's quite obvious in retrospect, when you think how people twist their sense of reality to align with some literal interpretation, or misinterpretation, of the world.
What is a thought? I propose that thought is perception without sensation--that is, a subjective experience of a sensory event, minus the actual stimulation of that sense. By that definition, then, the only thoughts that require voices are thoughts of voices. Granted, those types of thoughts are quite common (for me, at least), but there are other kinds, too.
If you think of a song, the thought is of music--not a voice. If you think of an elephant, the thought is (probably) of an image--not a voice. If you think of pain, the thought is of feeling--not a voice. Even words can be pictured rather than voiced if we imagine writing them out (though mentally "voicing" written language is often so reflexive it may be difficult to avoid!)
Unless you equate thought with mental voices as a tautology, I see no reason why thoughts should necessarily be dependent on voices.
Thoughts are not dependant on voices since many people experience thoughts as images, etc...
I recently talked with such a person (PhD) who insisted she seldom experiences thoughts as an inner voice, and instead usually experiences thought in the form of images.
From my personal unscientific experience of discussing this with numerous other people, I believe it is quite common.
The following study titled "Sampling the form of inner experience in three adults with Asperger syndrome", the pdf of which can be found via google scholar, addresses this question:
Three adults with Asperger syndrome were invited to talk about their inner experiences, using an experience sampling and interview technique. They reported thoughts primarily or solely in the form of images.
