Language, Language Disturbances, and the Texture of Consciousness

Abstract

It is always a remarkable event in the evolution of scientific thought if certain essential ideas developed in one field are corroborated by the results of research in quite another discipline, especially if the investigations are carried out independently of one another, for different purposes, on different levels, and by entirely different methods. In such a case, the findings in either department of knowledge will interpret the achievements of the other. And if the analyses of certain outstanding modern philosophers relating to the texture of the human mind, especially to the origin of abstraction and typification, converge with the outcome of neurological and psychopathological studies in the field of language disturbance caused by lesions of the brain, the situation is one of enormous interest to the social scientist. He may rightly expect that such mutual confirmation will shed new light upon some of his most vital problems, namely, the relationship between human beings and their environment, on the one hand, and the function of language, on the other.