Re: [ontolog-forum] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

[Simon Spero <sesuncedu@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 7:00 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 23, 2013, at 3:39 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:

Simon Spero wrote:
> the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.

Does Spero give any evidence for this very strong, and I think extremely implausible, claim that it is our mental linguistic system which provides the categories for thought?

I provide absolutely no evidence for this claim. 

 

More to the point, neither did Benjamin Lee Whorf, "Connecticut fire prevention inspector and weekend language-fancier" , who wrote the quoted material. 

I merely posted a one line link to the relevant section of the  SEP article on Philosophy of Linguistics, which does a fairly good job of showing that "the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" isn't even a hypothesis. 

Simon

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