T.J. Clark argues Paleolithic cave art was a counter-move against language's dominance of thought

jjvincent · x · 2026-09-10

A thoughtful pointer to T.J. Clark's "mind-bending" essay arguing that Paleolithic art like the Chauvet caves was a reaction to the rising hegemony of language over thought — a counter-proposal attempting to dissolve language's linear, hierarchical structure by treating depiction as a form of thinking.

The commenter highlights its elegant self-referential paradox: the argument is unfalsifiable yet compelling, and Clark can only show us thought-without-language through language itself.

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