> i don't necessarily buy into it 'scientifically' per se, but i'm skeptical of pure ideas existing without language, at least in any human subject capable of l

> i don't necessarily buy into it 'scientifically' per se, but i'm skeptical of pure ideas existing without language, at least in any human subject capable of language. AFAICT that does happen to be scientifically inaccurate. There have been experiments that show other primates exhibit a clear sense of fairness, for example. If one of the test subjects received food that was less desirable than what was given to the other test subject, the test subject with the less desirable food would get angry and eventually start throwing its food back at the researcher. I can't remember kind of primate this was. But they didn't possess a language, therefore this was an expression of a "pure idea existing without language." I haven't read much more about this. But the idea that we acquired language while somehow dropping the ability to hold such pure ideas-- esp. in the domain of fairness-- seems unlikely.