Without Lifting A Finger

More "uncertainty" re Thought precedes Language or vice versa. The two sides: Some philosophers have argued that our public language is our mental language, that a person who speaks English thinks in English. Others contend that people who do not know a public language (e.g. babies, aphasics ) can think, and that therefore some form of mentalese must be present innately. [From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought  ] * From the previously cited "Children think before they speak" by Paul Bloom: 

Augustine's words--and Wittgenstein's interpretation of those words--would seem to say, Yes, thought precedes language. Though I guess it's not that simple and--re the truth--the jury is apparently still out: http://www.yale.edu/minddevlab/papers/nature-children-think.pdf

I suppose Wittgenstein saw something here most of us (including perhaps Augustine) wouldn't have seen. But isn't that, to some degree, the way we all read: We sometimes find things other than what the author intended. * Of course in his Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein quotes the Latin of Augustine's Confessions (I. 8) . I will simply give the English translation: When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shown by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to unde...