How Theravāda Buddhism Enriches the Language of Thought Hypothesis: Beyond Syntax

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.

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Abstract

The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) posits that mental states operate through a language-like representational system physically implemented in the brain. However, this purely symbolic approach faces a significant limitation: certain mental phenomena—such as intuitions, emotions, and intentions—lack the syntactically compositional structure required by LOTH and therefore cannot be adequately explained within its symbolic framework. To address this theoretical challenge, we turn to Theravāda Buddhism (TB), an early Buddhist tradition that integrates rigorous philosophical inquiry with meditative practice. Remarkably, TB began to prefigure a solution to LOTH’s limitations over 2,300 years ago. Although LOTH and TB differ in implementation—LOTH through combinatorial syntax and semantics, and TB through meditative practice—they both share a foundational syntactic view of the mind. This distinction opens a pathway to enrich and extend LOTH’s explanatory scope. This paper proposes that TB’s recursive, structured experiential models offer a layered and dynamic foundation for symbolic processes, thereby addressing LOTH’s symbol grounding problem—an infinite regress in which no symbol is intrinsically meaningful, without abandoning formal structure. In doing so, it reframes the apparent tension between LOTH and TB as a syntactic enrichment, wherein structured cognitive architectures accommodate both symbolic representations and experience-grounded processes. Through this enrichment, TB’s meditative approach to cognitive processes lacking syntactic compositionality prefigures a resolution to LOTH’s limitations while preserving its core insights into mental representation.