CONVERGENCE
Even though Damasio and Descartes stand on two very different rocks, the fact that part of cognition relies on language seems to support both their ideas. On one hand, there is Damasio, who states that people think through their bodies, and adapt to the physiological changes occurring within them. Indeed, Damasio supports the claim that "the body provides a ground reference for the mind" (Damasio 1). Since infants are not born with the ability to speak a language, it is implied that their brains respond to external stimuli to provide them with the means to form verbal words and communicate. In other words, the body's plasticity allows a person to have his or her own thoughts and form ideas/schemas with language. In essence, the person is thinking through the functions of the body.
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Then, there is Descartes's philosophy, that the body is merely a vessel for the intangible being. In his philosophy, people think through their minds and exist because there is a "thinking thing" within their identities. The ability of a person to think through language seems to support Descartes's ideas as well. From a Cartesian point of view, since the mind controls perception, and the mind is sculpted by language and environment, cognition through language seems to support the notion of thinking through only the mind. The fact that the mind is created by language supports the notion of the "thinking thing".
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On the other hand, there is Andy Clark, a contemporary professor at the University of Edinburgh who specializes in the area of mind extension. In his book Being There, as described in an abstract by Sean Kelly (5), Clark "[rejects] any blanket image of perception as the passive reception of information" (pg 50) and pinpoints several different factors for why perception differs from people to people. One of these factors, stated by Clark, is language. According to Kelly, Clark holds the mind to be a product of both the body and the environment. These two factors create the sense of "being there". From this, the philosophical stakes of cognition through language can be understood. It is impossible to isolate either the body or the mind as the deciding factor for what people think through. Rather, it is a combination of the two which builds schemas and an individual's identity.
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References
5. Kelly, Sean D. "Mind Association." Mind 109 (2000): 138-43. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
5. Kelly, Sean D. "Mind Association." Mind 109 (2000): 138-43. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.