Can We Express Our Minds?

I often find myself at odds with the limits of language (and demonstration, performance, art, etc.) to express myself. This often arises when I have a unique experience and I try to convey that to others. Sometimes, it is even a struggle for me to find the right words, expressions, or even images of memories to think about the experience I had. I assume I am not alone in this.

In Chapter 3, Shiffrin presents her “thinker-based” approach to free speech rights. She writes, “given that our minds are not directly accessible to one another, speech and expression are the only precise avenues by which one can be known as the individual one is by others” (88-89). She continues, “to be known by others requires the ability to transmit the contents of one’s mind to others” (89). We are all humans with thoughts that we wish others to know in order for them to know ourselves. Therefore, we have an interest in supporting rights to speech and expression as means to transmit thoughts between us—to know and be known by others.

Though I somewhat agree with Shiffrin that “speech and expressions are the only precise avenues” for this transfer of thought, I believe that she overlooks how imprecise they are. My thoughts, and therefore the contents of my mind that I wish to express to others, are far more complex than words (or pictures, movies, plays, etc.) can capture. When I use language or expression to transfer the contents of my mind to someone else, I am capturing such a small portion of my experience that it misrepresents who I am. The more effort I put into my speech and expression, the more accurate it is—but it never feels quite representative.

This is a relevant issue in a lot of social debates today. For example, as much as “woke” white people consume Black media, speak to Black Americans, and read books from Black authors to better understand the perspective, they will never quite know what it is like to be a Black American. Toole highlights this in her argument on the epistemic advantages of marginalized groups. In fact, these “woke” people may wrongly assume that they understand this perspective after being recipients of expression. They may act on this perceived understanding in a way that fails to respond to the needs of those whose language did not properly express their minds. Here, the failure of language and expression to properly represent the “contents of one’s mind” may lead to people acting against my interest because they incorrectly believe that they know what my interest is. And, to make the issue even more complicated, it is not even sufficient to understand the perspective of the “Black American” because there are as many varied perspectives within the group as there are people who identify with it.

Still, with this issue, a number of questions need to be answered: Is misrepresenting ourselves with flawed language and expression still better than not representing ourselves at all? Are there better tools to express the contents of our mind (Musk’s neuralink)?