How Theravāda Buddhism Enriches the Language of Thought Hypothesis: Beyond Syntax
Comparative Philosophy An International Journal of Constructive Engagement of Distinct Approaches toward World Philosophy August 12, 2025 Juanjuan Cheng, Sumanasara Sandamadulle
The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) claims that thinking uses a language-like symbolic system in the brain, but it cannot explain intuitions, emotions, or intentions because these lack the required compositional structure. Theravāda Buddhism, an early Buddhist tradition combining philosophy with meditation, anticipated a solution over 2,300 years ago. Both LOTH and Buddhism share a syntactic view of the mind, though LOTH relies on combinatorial syntax and semantics while Buddhism uses meditative practice. The paper proposes that Buddhism's recursive, structured experiential models provide a layered foundation for symbolic processes, solving LOTH's symbol grounding problem—where no symbol is inherently meaningful—without abandoning formal structure. This reframes the tension as a syntactic enrichment, allowing cognitive architectures to handle both symbolic representations and experience-grounded processes.