For example, suppose some idiot claims he can think without language. Well, if that is true, he ought to be able to explain to us how he does it, without using language. Now, if he cannot explain it to us without using language, how did he explain it to himself. That is, after all, what thinking really is.
Some people will swallow anything, as this thread certainly proves. Others think there is no point in being careful about how their mind works or how they use it. What difference does it make if one does not bother to distinguish between, percepts, feelings, concepts (thoughts), or imaginination. Well, if your mind is a mush, I guess it doesn't matter.
Hank
It depends how broadly we define language. Are the mimes using the language? In some sense they are.
I think without language all the time. As an architect I think spatially in forms, volumes and voids. The thoughts do not need langauge to be formulated but to communicate them I may need to build a 3D model or make a 2D drawing to convey a 3D concept. Or I could say it or write it in millions of words which still may not communicate the concept as I conceptualize it. Spatial thinking is only one example of thinking without language or symbols. Mathematicians and musicians also think without language.
Of what value is grammar in thinking about how to avoid being eaten by shark coming at you rapidly?
I offer the suggestion that grammatical, symbolic thinking is a comparatively sparse attempt by the rational side of your brain to put what the visceral side of your brain is putting out continuously into cute little cubby holes. And that, in fact, most of your thinking energy is spent in dreamland, making a movie, and comparing it to old movies you have in your memory banks, rather than in rational-language-land, making up syllogisms.
This is not a compelling logical requirement. You are assuming that only those who can explain can think. You are assuming what you wish to prove.