Group on Language and Cognitive Disorders

According to the Un-Cartesian stance, language is not the expression of thought. To the contrary, language, and in particular grammar, is constitutive of rational and propositional thought. Against this background, the ensuing hypothesis is that any disorder affecting rational thought is the result of grammar falling apart. What is expected, moreover, is an alignment of grammatical phenotypes and cognitive phenotypes. Schizophrenia, the most devastating of mental diseases in cognitive terms, is the first target to be explored in this research program. If the hypothesis is right, the core symptoms of the disorder should be able to be explained as a consequence of a linguistic, specifically grammatical breakdown. The investigation of autism and Huntington disease in this same line are next on our agenda.