Thought

• 1. Defining Thought Processes

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  The Thinker by Auguste Rodin stands in the garden of the Musée Rodin, Paris. This statue captures a moment where thought occurs independently of direct sensory stimulation. Core forms include judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. Other processes like memory or imagination are also frequently considered types of thought. Unlike perception, these activities can occur without immediate input from the sensory organs. In a broader sense, any mental event may be described as a form of thought. The term can denote not just the process itself but the resulting mental states or systems of ideas held by an individual. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines it as conscious processes occurring independently of direct sensory input. A narrower sense restricts thought to specific conscious, conceptual, or linguistic processes such as judging or inferring. Sometimes terms are understood broadly to include all mental processes, conscious or unconscious. Some accounts add that only processes leading to intelligent behavior should count as thought. A common contrast is drawn between thinking and feeling. Thinking is seen as rational while feeling involves direct emotional engagement.

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• 2. Historical Philosophical Theories

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  Platonism holds that thought involves discerning eternal forms and their interrelations. These pure entities exist in a changeless, non-physical realm distinct from the sensory world. Examples include the forms of goodness, beauty, unity, and sameness. Aristotelianism interprets thinking as instantiating the universal essence of an object within the mind. This view derives universals from sense experience rather than a separate intelligible realm. Conceptualism identifies thinking with the mental evocation of concepts acquired through abstraction from sensory experience. Inner speech theories suggest that thought takes the form of silent verbal expression. This sometimes occurs in natural language and sometimes in a specialized mental language called Mentalese. Associationism views thought as the succession of ideas governed by laws of association. Behaviorism reduces thinking to behavioral dispositions that generate intelligent actions in response to stimuli. Computationalism compares thought to information processing, storage, and transmission in computers. Jerry Fodor introduced the language of thought hypothesis which states that thinking happens in the medium of a mental language. This language is composed of words connected syntactically to form sentences. Computationalist theories developed with the rise of computers in the second part of the 20th century.

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• 3. Cognitive Psychology Perspectives

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  Jean Piaget was a pioneer in the study of the development of thought from birth to maturity. His theory describes children's cognitive development through stages differing qualitatively in mode of representation. Thought evolves from being based on perceptions at the sensorimotor stage in the first two years of life. Subsequently, representations are organized into logical structures operating on concrete properties in the stage of concrete operations. Later, these operate on abstract principles in the stage of formal operations. Cognitive psychology investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka. Jean Piaget provided a theory of stages describing how thought develops through assimilation and accommodation. Neo-Piagetian theories consider the development of thought to come from increasing speed of processing and enhanced cognitive control. Working memory functions as one of the main mechanisms underlying thought. Positive psychology emphasizes positive aspects of human psychology equally important to mood disorders. Peterson and Seligman list character strengths that encourage positive thought building on a person's abilities rather than fixing symptoms.

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• 4. Unconscious Mental Activity

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  Sigmund Freud defined the id, ego, and super-ego as three parts of the psychic apparatus. The unconscious was a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes, or desires put out of mind by psychological repression. Carl Jung coined the term collective unconscious which is shared by all humanity. This reservoir contains concepts like science, religion, and morality derived from common experiences. Unconscious thought refers to mental activity occurring without conscious awareness. When someone faces an important decision they may not solve it straight away. Later, the solution may suddenly flash before them even though no conscious steps were taken. Cognitive transition happened and we need to posit unconscious thoughts to explain how it occurred. Conscious thought excels at simple problems with few variables but is outperformed by unconscious thought when complex problems involve many variables. Other researchers have rejected the claim that unconscious thought is often superior to conscious thought. Some suggest conscious thought follows formal logical laws while unconscious thought relies more on associative processing. Only conscious thinking is conceptually articulated and happens through the medium of language.

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• 5. Logic And Critical Thinking

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  The law of contradiction states that for any proposition it is impossible that both it and its negation are true. Aristotle held that there are some cases in which the law of excluded middle is false concerning uncertain future events. Modern intuitionist logic also rejects the law of excluded middle based on verification through proof. Dialetheists reject the law of contradiction by holding that some propositions are both true and false. The principle of identity asserts that any object is identical to itself. John Dewey provided a concrete everyday example involving foam bubbles moving contrary to initial expectations. A critical thinker tries to come up with various possible explanations then modifies the situation to determine the right one. Arriving at the correct solution by blindly following algorithm steps does not qualify as critical thinking. Accepting a solution presented in a sudden flash of insight straight away also fails this test. Critical thinking plays an important role in education fostering the student's ability to think critically. It involves assessing reasoning soundness and evidence reliability. Logic plays an important role avoiding informal fallacies due to vague expressions in natural language. Positive thinking figures in the New Thought movement under the pseudoscientific claim of the law of attraction.

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• 6. Interdisciplinary Scientific Approaches

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  Phenomenology examines the subjective experience of thinking or what it feels like to think. Cognitive phenomenology refers to the experiential character of thinking distinct from sensory experience. Two persons listening to a radio broadcast in French hear the same sounds but only one understands meaning. This difference requires positing a distinctive cognitive phenomenology accompanying thought corresponding to meaning. Metaphysics addresses how mental processes relate to matter in a naturalistic framework. The mind-body problem concerns explaining relationships between minds and bodily states. Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch published The Embodied Mind in 1992 proposing embodied cognition. This approach sees mind, actions, and environment as parts of a whole determining each other. Neuroscience investigates cellular mechanisms for making fresh memories discovered by scientists in March 2020. Myelin is now seen as contributing to learning by controlling signal speed along neural wiring. Artificial intelligence explores whether computers can think through simulations like John Searle's Chinese room argument. A person inside a closed-off room responds to messages without knowing Chinese using a rule book. Searle aims to show that computers lack deeper understanding despite acting intelligently. Biology and sociology also investigate different aspects of thought alongside linguistics.

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