Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 37 No. 4, 2017.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21464/fi37406
Influence of Natural Language on Reasoning
Ines Skelac
orcid.org/0000-0003-4390-9161
; Hrvatska zaklada za znanost, Nazorova 2, HR–51410 Opatija
Nenad Smokrović
orcid.org/0000-0003-4834-5289
; Sveučilište u Rijeci, Filozofski fakultet, Sveučilišna avenija 4, HR–51000 Rijeka
Abstract
The relationship between natural language and thinking is investigated by the analysis of the influence of natural language on deductive reasoning with the special emphasis on the correlation between the efficiency in the use of complex grammar structures and language use in general and the efficiency in deductive reasoning. The detected relation between different language structures and specificities of reasoning could imply a possibility that language capacity, meaning and scope of connectives and quantifiers, as well as in word order, influence deductive reasoning. If differences in natural languages may influence differences in reasoning, it could be concluded that thinking is language-dependent at least with respect to the formal possibilities of language. Further, if the efficiency in language use is directly related to the efficiency in reasoning, this could suggest that reasoning is strongly language-dependent and even that particular differences in reasoning may be caused by differences in language capacity.
Keywords
natural language; language performance; language competence; reasoning; quantifiers; passive
Hrčak ID:
199380
URI
Publication date:
8.2.2018.
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