Conscious Thinking: Language or Elimination?

Abstract

Do we conduct our conscious propositional thinking in natural language? Or is such language only peripherally related to human conscious thought‐processes? In this paper I shall present a partial defence of the former view, by arguing that the only real alternative is eliminativism about conscious propositional thinking. Following some introductory remarks, I shall state the argument for this conclusion, and show how that conclusion can be true. Thereafter I shall defend each of the three main premises in turn.