You're saying that mental instances of words are what constitutes thought. That is incorrect. Mental words are an output of a mental process downstream of thought.
> I'm saying concepts generally need names before we can reason about them.
This is also false. People adapt to patterns constantly; they rarely bother to name those patterns.
> This is also false. People adapt to patterns constantly; they rarely bother to name those patterns.
I'm trying to maintain an open tone in the face of this, but I might stop soon. To address this particular point: "adapt to patterns" - such as? From context you seem to be saying this is identical to reasoning, but I don't see why that would be.
This is difficult to answer in terms other than "everything in the world".
People do not have trouble recognizing different types of pain that they experience and seeking different treatment based on the difference in the pain. They do not use words to represent the differences, and if you ask them to describe those differences, they will become frustrated.
People don't have trouble recognizing smells. They are generally not able to describe smells. This is why you see frustration among chemical engineers over papers describing the smell of various substances as "characteristic".
People routinely recognize behavior without having any name for it. If you choose a strategy for making a presentation to your boss, you are doing this based on a mental model of his behavior. In some cases, people do give names to behavior that they worry about, but in almost all cases, they don't.
I recently described the behavior of dancers in a dance video in these terms: "they're being like him". You may notice that there is zero descriptive content in that sentence. But the meaning was clear to both me and my interlocutors.
Consider a hypothetical conversation planning out a strategy. (For anything.) Person A describes a plan. Person B responds "What if he does that thing he does?". A and B both understand what is being referred to, but, obviously, B has no name for it.
All of these are just examples of a phenomenon that applies to everything. If you've ever observed anyone struggling to put their thoughts into words -- and I know that you have -- you should be able to realize that their thoughts cannot have been embodied in words to begin with.
You already received a fantastic response with many examples, but I want to pile on another thing. Talk to an accomplished autodidact. That is, somebody who learned a skill on their own using only trial and error. Examples I'm familiar with are music (playing an instrument) and computer programming. Autodidacts regularly recognize and apply patterns, methods, systems, procedures or strategies, long before they find out whether people have a word for them. For instance, a basic bit of music theory is that you can resolve a C-major melody by returning from a G chord back to C. Autodidacts regularly discover that, and that it translates analogously to other modes, without knowing the terms “dominant” and “tonica” (or even “major” and “chord” and “resolve”).
> I'm saying concepts generally need names before we can reason about them.
This is also false. People adapt to patterns constantly; they rarely bother to name those patterns.