The Relationship of Experience to Thought

It is a familiar philosophical idea, one that undoubtedly contains much truth, that experience makes an essential contribution to contents of thoughts - that without a proper relationship to experience, thought is empty. To isolate the truth contained in this idea we need to become clearer on contents of thoughts and on the precise relationship of experience to these contents. These are the goals of the present essay. The goals are large and distant, and I shall be satisfied if I manage to take a few steps in the right direction.We need to address a preliminary question before we embark on our project: how should we conceive of thoughts? I suggest we follow the lead of Plato and Sellars and model thoughts as inner speech (or inner writing or inner typing - it does not matter which). Let us take thoughts to have logical structure analogous to that of out-loud sayings, and let us use the same logical vocabulary for thinkings and sayings. So, we can classify certain thinkings and sayings as suppositions; we can call their constituents terms; we can speak of these constituents as expressing concepts and as denoting particulars or universale; and so on. We can move back and forth between sayings and thinkings, and between constituents of sayings and constituents of thinking. Points made for one will hold, mutatis mutandis, for the other.It may be objected that the Plato-Sellars model is too intellectual, that it denies thought to mute animals. Response: Maybe so, but my present project is intellectual. I am concerned to understand the logic of empirical inquiry, an inquiry that is discursive. I want to understand such things as what sorts of challenges are proper, what demands for justification are legitimate, and what connections to experience are necessary for content. For this logical inquiry, the Plato-Sellars model of thinking is, prima facie, a good starting point. By adopting the model, I am not denying the possibility of a broader conception of thought, one not so closely tied to language. Such a conception may well be desirable, even necessary, for certain inquiries. The present inquiry provides, however, no immediate reason to seek such a conception. We should not fritter away our limited resources chasing a new model of thought when an older one will serve us just as well. We can always revisit the old model if we encounter problems and we suspect the model to be a contributing factor.A. CONCEPTUAL CRITICISM1 . Men often, John Locke tells us, "set their Thoughts more on Words than Things" and "speak several Words, no otherwise than Parrots do" (Essay, III.ii.7). This parroting of meaningless words is, if not excusable, at least understandable. Words being superficially all similar, it is easy to suppose that they must be meaningful simply because we use them in familiar constructions in familiar ways.1 Superficial impressions can be misleading, however. Just as we critically assess assertions and beliefs for truth and rationality, similarly we can (and should) critically examine words and concepts for meaningfulness and rational legitimacy. This critical inquiry can be expected to issue injunctions. Locke's own injunction was this: "A Man should take care to use no word without a signification, no Name without an Idea for which he makes it stand" (Essay, IH.xi.8).2. David Hume follows Locke in his own pursuit of the critical inquiry, and he offers us a crisp methodological maxim:When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion, that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need but enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived? And if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion. (Enquiry, §2)Hume's maxim rests on a particular conception of thought and experience. "All the materials of thinking," Hume tells us, "are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment," from what Hume calls 'impressions'. …