The Function of Consensus

THE PRESENT REFLECTION ON THE CONNECTION between mythic belief systems and forms of psychopathology derives from the hypothesis of linguistic relativity which is generally associated with the names of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. The thesis

of linguistic relativity was stated more or less concisely by Sapir (1921) in the following terms:

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and the language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. … We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. (p. 134)

There can be little objection to my mind in basing one's approach to the problem of the relationship between patterns of psychopathology and the organization of mythic belief systems on the hypothesis of linguistic relativity. However, there are risks inherent in such an approach and the essence of my commentary is that the present essay has run those risks and has not avoided the implicit logical peril.

The risk inherent in this approach is that one mistakes the level of verbal behavior for the thought product that stands somehow behind, yet closely involved with and related to the patterns of verbal expression. If one reads, for example, Sapir's discussions of the relationships between language and thought, it becomes evident that the problem of language-thought connections cannot be simply reduced to considerations of verbal behavior. The problem is infinitely more complex. The argu