is a journalist and philosopher of technology with degrees from France’s École Normale Supérieure in Lyon and HEC-Paris, where she specialised in innovation and media, before joining Philonomist’s editorial team.
Picture: © CP
Dear reader,
Have you ever landed yourself in a discussion in which you feel useless, and yet still very helpful? I have. While we were working side by side, a lawyer friend suddenly started cursing, before turning to me: “There’s something that bothers me,” she began, then went on to give a ten-minute monologue interspersed with my slightly puzzled “mms” and “aahs”. She explained to me the story of the case, of her client, as well as a series of technical details impossible to understand for a novice like myself. I could see that I was pretty much of no help. Then suddenly, in the middle of a complex reasoning, she broke off: “Yes that’s it!”, before thanking me profusely and telling me that I had been a very good “rubber duck”.
Was she mocking my nasal tone? Giving me an unlikely and affectionate nickname? Not at all! My friend was referring here to a habit of computer programmers, which consists of correcting errors in lines of code by explaining them out loud, line by line, to a rubber duck. Of course, the same function can be served by something other than a toy: your pet, your ignorant infant, or, as in this case, the person working next to you, who knows nothing about it. Does the idea of such a one-way change put you off? Think again: some problems might only be solved by speaking out loud, as if we were facing a real interlocutor. And this could have something to do with the way our thinking works.
We often imagine the words that come out of our mouths as mere communication tools, which serve to label our thoughts, share them, or memorise them; and that some thoughts are too noble or complex to be expressed with vulgar combinations of 26 letters. In his Philosophy of Mind (1807), the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel tackles this myth. “We usually believe, it is true, that the highest is the ineffable” – in other words, that which cannot be expressed in words due to its intensity. “But this is a superficial and baseless opinion,” Hegel argues, “for in reality the ineffable is obscure thought, thought in a state of fermentation, and which only becomes clear when it finds the word.”
That should bring back down to earth all those who claim that their thinking is too complex or their problems too subtle to be explained. For as French writer Nicolas Boileau already said, back in the 17th century, “what we conceive well is clearly stated, and the words to say it come easily”!
‘To want to think without words is a senseless attempt’
—Hegel
But Hegel goes further than Boileau: for him, clear enunciation isn’t just the sign of rigorous thought, but its very condition. Outside of language, it’s impossible to think – period. You may feel anger, for example, but you will only be able to become aware of this anger when you have named it: rage, indignation, hatred, fury, frustration… “We only have determinate and real thoughts when we give them objective form,” Hegel writes. And what form is more objective than a voice that speaks out, loud and clear? By transforming an idea into sounds, we realise what we really want to say. At the stage of informed intuition, an idea is worth nothing. This is why, for Hegel, “to want to think without words is a foolish attempt.”
That’s not to say you should indulge in endless logorrhea at the slightest problem: speaking doesn’t solve anything by itself. Hegel admits this: “No doubt one can get lost in a flow of words without grasping the thing.” But if this happens, it’s down to you: “The fault is in the imperfect, indeterminate and empty thought, not in the word.”
An “indeterminate and empty thought” is a thought that does not want to be understood. For the rubber duck method to work with co-workers, a game of make-believe must take place: talk as if the other person understood what you’re saying and were trying to understand. And as for the good rubber duck colleague, they have a duty to frown from time to time or grumble in disapproval when they feel that the speaker is discussing a difficulty.
Of course, there are times at work when it’s best to think alone, pen in hand, and times when you need some backing. But next time you stumble on a thorny problem, try asking your office neighbour if they fancy being part of your Hegelian barnyard.
Anne-Sophie Moreau
Picture © Brett Jordan / Unsplash
