Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

The existing literature on the ontology of inner speech is dominated by two positions. The actual speech view says that when you engage in inner speech you are engaging in real or genuine speech of a certain special sort. The imagined speech view says that when you engage in inner speech you are imagining performing certain speech acts. This paper proposes and explores a different way to think about inner speech that we call the representational view. This view is closer in spirit to the imagined speech view than to the actual speech view, but it modifies it in two fundamental ways. First, it asserts that to engage in inner speech is often to imagine expressions rather than only acts performed with those expressions; in other words, inner speech involves a kind of object-imagining rather than event-imagining. Second—and this is what prompts the name of the view—it asserts that, while inner speech often involves object-imagining it may also involve other forms of object-representing as well, e.g., thinking about, contemplating, recalling, and attending. The paper shows in detail that this proposal is defensible on its own terms, avoids the pitfalls of other views, fits in well with larger issues about the nature of language and its use, and illuminates the several connections between inner speech and consciousness.