The Child in Time

I agree that thinking is intimately related to language, but I would also suggest, while making matters ostensibly more complicated, but ultimately more sensible, that yet another major factor is involved: literature.

Historically the idea of a psychological 'interior' or 'inner space' co-occurs with the practice of silent reading in the 4th century CE. Prior to this, in classical Greece and Rome, there was little mention of the idea of 'inner thoughts'. But once silent, private reading took over from earlier oral and social practices, a new dimension entered reflexive discourse - the inner dimension.

I daresay that such a relationship is easily mirrored ontogenetically, and I'd say it acquiesces quite nicely with Vygotsky, and what you've written here.

All my own work:
Mc Mahon, C. (2008). The origins of the psychological ‘interior’: Evidence from Imperial Roman literary practices. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 44(1), 19-37.

Full article here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18196548

Pre-publication copy here:
http://ciaranmcmahon.ie/doc/Origins_of_the_psychological_‘interior’_-_evidence_from_Imperial_Roman_literary_practices.pdf

I feel that i have much to read on condensed inner speech. I am reading A Thousand Days of Wonder at the moment. I thought of two things while reading this article. When considering condensed inner speech i was reminded that aside from the active thinking we are doing on a topic we also include in our inner speech things that take a fraction of a second but would take a book to write because of all the 'history' behind that thought, almost like a litte reference in a book that is skipped past but can be read in detail at the end of the book. I equate it to the difference between talking to someone about Star Wars who has never seen it compared to someone who has. The second conversation will contain so much implied knowledge that it need not be mentioned. I didnt really pick this up in the article. Its almost like there are many calling functions that that contain millions of words/experiences/previous inner speeches/dreams but need not be processed again when we are conducting inner speech. Is this module tagged with a word or a picture or something else?

Thank you for the comments. I'll look out for your paper with great interest, Ciaran. Dan, I quite agree with the 'timing' issue that you raise. It's a puzzle that we can 'think more' in inner speech than we would have time to think if we were using full-blown language. (Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel discuss this, for example, in their book Describing Inner Experience.) My answer would be that this phenomenon results from the fact that we are using condensed rather than expanded inner speech. Part of this involves (as you say) relying on assumed information. I discuss this more in the Fernyhough & Jones (forthcoming) chapter. But essentially it's all there in Vygotsky's account of inner speech development.