It is undeniable that the development of language gave humans an evolutionary advantage that no other species has. Studies in theoretical linguistics make bold claims that human creativity, complex social organisation, and capacity for mathematics may have arisen from the structures inherent in language (Chomsky 2005; Hinzen 2006). However, current research on animal and insect cognition shows that problem-solving, social complexity, and numerical abilities are also present in non-linguistic species (Vincenzo 2023). This situation requires a re-evaluation of the role language plays in shaping human reasoning. The first step towards this re-evaluation involves developing a theoretical framework capable of unifying linguistic and non-linguistic reasoning. In this essay, I will discuss how such a framework can be developed based on the classical Kripke-style knowledge model (Kripke 1959). I will also address the challenges for a unifying model that come from the need to explain cross-species cognitive parallels and differences. The key modification of the classical Kripke model discussed in this essay involves reworking the Hintikka-style accessibility relation between possibilities as represented by an agent (Hintikka 1962). The indexed accessibility relation proposed by Hintikka does not allow us to represent cross-species parallels and differences. Instead, we should, I argue, adopt a single accessibility relation and represent the parallels and differences in the relata—that is, the possibilities themselves (Stalnaker 2008, 2014).
References
Chomsky, Noam. 2005. “Three Factors in Language Design.” Linguistic Inquiry 36 (1): 1–22.
Hintikka, Jaakko. 1962. Knowledge and Belief: An Introduction to the Logic of the Two Notions. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press. https://archive.org/details/knowledgebeliefi0000hint.
Hinzen, Wolfram. 2006. Mind Design and Minimal Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kripke, Saul. 1959. “A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic.” Journal of Symbolic Logic 24 (1): 1–14.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2964568.
Stalnaker, Robert C. 2008. Our Knowledge of the Internal World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2014. Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vincenzo, Luca Di. 2023. “Theory of Mind in Non-Linguistic Animals: A Multimodal Approach.” PhD
thesis, Universita di Roma.
