Thought

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought

For other uses, see Thought (disambiguation).

"Think" and "Thinking" redirect here. For other uses, see Think (disambiguation) and
Thinking (disambiguation).
In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking
refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen
independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic
forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem
solving, and deliberation. But other mental processes, like
considering an idea, memory, or imagination, are also often
included. These processes can happen internally independent of
the sensory organs, unlike perception. But when understood in
the widest sense, any mental event may be understood as a form
of thinking, including perception and unconscious mental
processes. In a slightly different sense, the term thought refers
not to the mental processes themselves but to mental states or The Thinker by Rodin
systems of ideas brought about by these processes. (1840–1917), in the garden
of the Musée Rodin
Various theories of thinking have been proposed. They aim to
capture the characteristic features of thought. Platonists hold that thinking consists in
discerning and inspecting Platonic forms and their interrelations. It involves the ability to
discriminate between the pure Platonic forms themselves and the mere imitations found in
the sensory world. According to Aristotelianism, to think about something is to instantiate in
one's mind the universal essence of the object of thought. These universals are abstracted
from sense experience and are not understood as existing in a changeless intelligible world,
in contrast to Platonism. Conceptualism is closely related to Aristotelianism: it identifies
thinking with mentally evoking concepts instead of instantiating essences. Inner speech
theories claim that thinking is a form of inner speech in which words are silently expressed in
the thinker's mind. According to some accounts, this happens in a regular language, like
English or French. The language of thought hypothesis, on the other hand, holds that this
happens in the medium of a unique mental language called Mentalese. Central to this idea is
that linguistic representational systems are built up from atomic and compound
representations and that this structure is also found in thought. Associationists understand
thinking as the succession of ideas or images. They are particularly interested in the laws of
association that govern how the train of thought unfolds. Behaviorists, by contrast, identify
thinking with behavioral dispositions to engage in public intelligent behavior as a reaction to
particular external stimuli. Computationalism is the most recent of these theories. It sees
thinking in analogy to how computers work in terms of the storage, transmission, and
processing of information.

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Various types of thinking are discussed in the academic literature. A judgment is a mental
operation in which a proposition is evoked and then either affirmed or denied. Reasoning, on
the other hand, is the process of drawing conclusions from premises or evidence. Both
judging and reasoning depend on the possession of the relevant concepts, which are acquired
in the process of concept formation. In the case of problem solving, thinking aims at
reaching a predefined goal by overcoming certain obstacles. Deliberation is an important
form of practical thought that consists in formulating possible courses of action and
assessing the reasons for and against them. This may lead to a decision by choosing the most
favorable option. Both episodic memory and imagination present objects and situations
internally, in an attempt to accurately reproduce what was previously experienced or as a free
rearrangement, respectively. Unconscious thought is thought that happens without being
directly experienced. It is sometimes posited to explain how difficult problems are solved in
cases where no conscious thought was employed.

Thought is discussed in various academic disciplines. Phenomenology is interested in the

experience of thinking. An important question in this field concerns the experiential
character of thinking and to what extent this character can be explained in terms of sensory
experience. Metaphysics is, among other things, interested in the relation between mind and
matter. This concerns the question of how thinking can fit into the material world as
described by the natural sciences. Cognitive psychology aims to understand thought as a
form of information processing. Developmental psychology, on the other hand, investigates
the development of thought from birth to maturity and asks which factors this development
depends on. Psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of the unconscious in mental life. Other
fields concerned with thought include linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence,
biology, and sociology. Various concepts and theories are closely related to the topic of
thought. The term "law of thought" refers to three fundamental laws of logic: the law of
contradiction, the law of excluded middle, and the principle of identity. Counterfactual
thinking involves mental representations of non-actual situations and events in which the
thinker tries to assess what would be the case if things had been different. Thought
experiments often employ counterfactual thinking in order to illustrate theories or to test
their plausibility. Critical thinking is a form of thinking that is reasonable, reflective, and
focused on determining what to believe or how to act. Positive thinking involves focusing
one's attention on the positive aspects of one's situation and is intimately related to
optimism.

Definition
The terms "thought" and "thinking" refer to a wide variety of psychological activities.[1][2][3]
In their most common sense, they are understood as conscious processes that can happen
independently of sensory stimulation.[4][5] This includes various different mental processes,
like considering an idea or proposition or judging it to be true. In this sense, memory and
imagination are forms of thought but perception is not.[6] In a more restricted sense, only the
most paradigmatic cases are considered thought. These involve conscious processes that are

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conceptual or linguistic and sufficiently abstract, like judging, inferring, problem solving, and
deliberating.[1][7][8] Sometimes the terms "thought" and "thinking" are understood in a very
wide sense as referring to any form of mental process, conscious or unconscious.[9][10] In this
sense, they may be used synonymously with the term "mind". This usage is encountered, for
example, in the Cartesian tradition, where minds are understood as thinking things, and in
the cognitive sciences.[6][11][12][13] But this sense may include the restriction that such
processes have to lead to intelligent behavior to be considered thought.[14] A contrast
sometimes found in the academic literature is that between thinking and feeling. In this
context, thinking is associated with a sober, dispassionate, and rational approach to its topic
while feeling involves a direct emotional engagement.[15][16][17]

The terms "thought" and "thinking" can also be used to refer not to the mental processes
themselves but to mental states or systems of ideas brought about by these processes.[18] In
this sense, they are often synonymous with the term "belief" and its cognates and may refer
to the mental states which either belong to an individual or are common among a certain
group of people.[19][20] Discussions of thought in the academic literature often leave it
implicit which sense of the term they have in mind.

The word thought comes from Old English þoht, or geþoht, from the stem of þencan "to
conceive of in the mind, consider".[21]

Theories of thinking
Various theories of thinking have been proposed.[22] They aim to capture the characteristic
features of thinking. The theories listed here are not exclusive: it may be possible to combine
some without leading to a contradiction.

Platonism
According to Platonism, thinking is a spiritual activity in which Platonic forms and their
interrelations are discerned and inspected.[22][23] This activity is understood as a form of
silent inner speech in which the soul talks to itself.[24] Platonic forms are seen as universals
that exist in a changeless realm different from the sensible world. Examples include the
forms of goodness, beauty, unity, and sameness.[25][26][27] On this view, the difficulty of
thinking consists in being able to grasp the Platonic forms and to distinguish them as the
original from the mere imitations found in the sensory world. This means, for example,
distinguishing beauty itself from derivative images of beauty.[23] One problem for this view is
to explain how humans can learn and think about Platonic forms belonging to a different
realm.[22] Plato himself tries to solve this problem through his theory of recollection,
according to which the soul already was in contact with the Platonic forms before and is
therefore able to remember what they are like.[23] But this explanation depends on various
assumptions usually not accepted in contemporary thought.[23]

Aristotelianism and conceptualism

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Aristotelians hold that the mind is able to think about something by instantiating the essence
of the object of thought.[22] So while thinking about trees, the mind instantiates tree-ness.
This instantiation does not happen in matter, as is the case for actual trees, but in mind,
though the universal essence instantiated in both cases is the same.[22] In contrast to
Platonism, these universals are not understood as Platonic forms existing in a changeless
intelligible world.[28] Instead, they only exist to the extent that they are instantiated. The
mind learns to discriminate universals through abstraction from experience.[29] This
explanation avoids various of the objections raised against Platonism.[28]

Conceptualism is closely related to Aristotelianism. It holds that thinking consists in mentally

evoking concepts. Some of these concepts may be innate, but most have to be learned
through abstraction from sense experience before they can be used in thought.[22]

It has been argued against these views that they have problems in accounting for the logical
form of thought. For example, to think that it will either rain or snow, it is not sufficient to
instantiate the essences of rain and snow or to evoke the corresponding concepts. The reason
for this is that the disjunctive relation between the rain and the snow is not captured this
way.[22] Another problem shared by these positions is the difficulty of giving a satisfying
account of how essences or concepts are learned by the mind through abstraction.[22]

Inner speech theory

Inner speech theories claim that thinking is a form of inner speech.[6][30][24][1] This view is
sometimes termed psychological nominalism.[22] It states that thinking involves silently
evoking words and connecting them to form mental sentences. The knowledge a person has
of their thoughts can be explained as a form of overhearing one's own silent monologue.[31]
Three central aspects are often ascribed to inner speech: it is in an important sense similar to
hearing sounds, it involves the use of language and it constitutes a motor plan that could be
used for actual speech.[24] This connection to language is supported by the fact that thinking
is often accompanied by muscle activity in the speech organs. This activity may facilitate
thinking in certain cases but is not necessary for it in general.[1] According to some accounts,
thinking happens not in a regular language, like English or French, but has its own type of
language with the corresponding symbols and syntax. This theory is known as the language
of thought hypothesis.[32][33]

Inner speech theory has a strong initial plausibility since introspection suggests that indeed
many thoughts are accompanied by inner speech. But its opponents usually contend that this
is not true for all types of thinking.[22][5][34] It has been argued, for example, that forms of
daydreaming constitute non-linguistic thought.[35] This issue is relevant to the question of
whether animals have the capacity to think. If thinking is necessarily tied to language then
this would suggest that there is an important gap between humans and animals since only
humans have a sufficiently complex language. But the existence of non-linguistic thoughts
suggests that this gap may not be that big and that some animals do indeed think.[34][36][37]

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Language of thought hypothesis

There are various theories about the relation between language and thought. One prominent
version in contemporary philosophy is called the language of thought hypothesis.[32][33][38]
[39][40] It states that thinking happens in the medium of a mental language. This language,

often referred to as Mentalese, is similar to regular languages in various respects: it is

composed of words that are connected to each other in syntactic ways to form sentences.[32]
[33][38][39] This claim does not merely rest on an intuitive analogy between language and

thought. Instead, it provides a clear definition of the features a representational system has
to embody in order to have a linguistic structure.[38][33][39] On the level of syntax, the
representational system has to possess two types of representations: atomic and compound
representations. Atomic representations are basic whereas compound representations are
constituted either by other compound representations or by atomic representations.[38][33]
[39] On the level of semantics, the semantic content or the meaning of the compound

representations should depend on the semantic contents of its constituents. A

representational
[39] system is linguistically structured if it fulfills these two requirements.[38][33]

The language of thought hypothesis states that the same is true for thinking in general. This
would mean that thought is composed of certain atomic representational constituents that
can be combined as described above.[38][33][41] Apart from this abstract characterization, no
further concrete claims are made about how human thought is implemented by the brain or
which other similarities to natural language it has.[38] The language of thought hypothesis
was first introduced by Jerry Fodor.[33][38] He argues in favor of this claim by holding that it
constitutes the best explanation of the characteristic features of thinking. One of these
features is productivity: a system of representations is productive if it can generate an
infinite number of unique representations based on a low number of atomic representations.
[38][33][41]
This applies to thought since human beings are capable of entertaining an infinite
number of distinct thoughts even though their mental capacities are quite limited. Other
characteristic features of thinking include systematicity and inferential coherence.[33][38][41]
Fodor argues that the language of thought hypothesis is true because it explains how thought
can have these features and because there is no good alternative explanation.[38] Some
arguments against the language of thought hypothesis are based on neural networks, which
are able to produce intelligent behavior without depending on representational systems.
Other objections focus on the idea that some mental representations happen non-
linguistically, for example, in the form of maps or images.[38][33]

Computationalists have been especially interested in the language of thought hypothesis

since it provides ways to close the gap between thought in the human brain and
computational processes implemented by computers.[38][33][42] The reason for this is that
processes over representations that respect syntax and semantics, like inferences according
to the modus ponens, can be implemented by physical systems using causal relations. The
same linguistic systems may be implemented through different material systems, like brains
or computers. In this way, computers can think.[38][33]

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Associationism
An important view in the empiricist tradition has been associationism, the view that thinking
consists in the succession of ideas or images.[1][43][44] This succession is seen as being
governed by laws of association, which determine how the train of thought unfolds.[1][45]
These laws are different from logical relations between the contents of thoughts, which are
found in the case of drawing inferences by moving from the thought of the premises to the
thought of the conclusion.[45] Various laws of association have been suggested. According to
the laws of similarity and contrast, ideas tend to evoke other ideas that are either very similar
to them or their opposite. The law of contiguity, on the other hand, states that if two ideas
were frequently experienced together, then the experience of one tends to cause the
experience of the other.[1][43] In this sense, the history of an organism's experience
determines which thoughts the organism has and how these thoughts unfold.[45] But such an
association does not guarantee that the connection is meaningful or rational. For example,
because of the association between the terms "cold" and "Idaho", the thought "this coffee
shop is cold" might lead to the thought "Russia should annex Idaho".[45]

One form of associationism is imagism. It states that thinking involves entertaining a

sequence of images where earlier images conjure up later images based on the laws of
association.[22] One problem with this view is that we can think about things that we cannot
imagine. This is especially relevant when the thought involves very complex objects or
infinities, which is common, for example, in mathematical thought.[22] One criticism directed
at associationism in general is that its claim is too far-reaching. There is wide agreement that
associative processes as studied by associationists play some role in how thought unfolds. But
the claim that this mechanism is sufficient to understand all thought or all mental processes
is usually not accepted.[44][45]

Behaviorism
According to behaviorism, thinking consists in behavioral dispositions to engage in certain
publicly observable behavior as a reaction to particular external stimuli.[46][47][48] On this
view, having a particular thought is the same as having a disposition to behave in a certain
way. This view is often motivated by empirical considerations: it is very difficult to study
thinking as a private mental process but it is much easier to study how organisms react to a
certain situation with a given behavior.[48] In this sense, the capacity to solve problems not
through existing habits but through creative new approaches is particularly relevant.[49] The
term "behaviorism" is also sometimes used in a slightly different sense when applied to
thinking to refer to a specific form of inner speech theory.[50] This view focuses on the idea
that the relevant inner speech is a derivative form of regular outward speech.[1] This sense
overlaps with how behaviorism is understood more commonly in philosophy of mind since
these inner speech acts are not observed by the researcher but merely inferred from the
subject's intelligent behavior.[50] This remains true to the general behaviorist principle that
behavioral evidence is required for any psychological hypothesis.[48]

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One problem for behaviorism is that the same entity often behaves differently despite being
in the same situation as before.[51][52] This problem consists in the fact that individual
thoughts or mental states usually do not correspond to one particular behavior. So thinking
that the pie is tasty does not automatically lead to eating the pie, since various other mental
states may still inhibit this behavior, for example, the belief that it would be impolite to do so
or that the pie is poisoned.[53][54]

Computationalism
Computationalist theories of thinking, often found in the cognitive sciences, understand
thinking as a form of information processing.[42][55][46] These views developed with the rise
of computers in the second part of the 20th century, when various theorists saw thinking in
analogy to computer operations.[55] On such views, the information may be encoded
differently in the brain, but in principle, the same operations take place there as well,
corresponding to the storage, transmission, and processing of information.[1][13] But while
this analogy has some intuitive attraction, theorists have struggled to give a more explicit
explanation of what computation is. A further problem consists in explaining the sense in
which thinking is a form of computing.[46] The traditionally dominant view defines
computation in terms of Turing machines, though contemporary accounts often focus on
neural networks for their analogies.[42] A Turing machine is capable of executing any
algorithm based on a few very basic principles, such as reading a symbol from a cell, writing a
symbol to a cell, and executing instructions based on the symbols read.[42] This way it is
possible to perform deductive reasoning following the inference rules of formal logic as well
as simulating many other functions of the mind, such as language processing, decision
making, and motor control.[55][46] But computationalism does not only claim that thinking is
in some sense similar to computation. Instead, it is claimed that thinking just is a form of
computation or that the mind is a Turing machine.[46]

Computationalist theories of thought are sometimes divided into functionalist and

representationalist approaches.[46] Functionalist approaches define mental states through
their causal roles but allow both external and internal events in their causal network.[56][57]
[58]
Thought may be seen as a form of program that can be executed in the same way by many
different systems, including humans, animals, and even robots. According to one such view,
whether something is a thought only depends on its role "in producing further internal states
and verbal outputs".[59][56] Representationalism, on the other hand, focuses on the
representational features of mental states and defines thoughts as sequences of intentional
mental states.[60][46] In this sense, computationalism is often combined with the language of
thought hypothesis by interpreting these sequences as symbols whose order is governed by
syntactic rules.[46][33]

Various arguments have been raised against computationalism. In one sense, it seems trivial
since almost any physical system can be described as executing computations and therefore
as thinking. For example, it has been argued that the molecular movements in a regular wall

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can be understood as computing an algorithm since they are "isomorphic to the formal
structure of the program" in question under the right interpretation.[46] This would lead to
the implausible conclusion that the wall is thinking. Another objection focuses on the idea
that computationalism captures only some aspects of thought but is unable to account for
other crucial aspects of human cognition.[46][55]

Types of thinking
A great variety of types of thinking are discussed in the academic literature. A common
approach divides them into those forms that aim at the creation of theoretical knowledge and
those that aim at producing actions or correct decisions.[22] But there is no universally
accepted taxonomy summarizing all these types. In some cases, the same particular thought
may belong to different categories at the same time. It may also depend on one's definition of
thought whether some of the types listed here actually qualify as thought.

Entertaining, judging, and reasoning

Thinking is often identified with the act of judging. A judgment is a mental operation in
which a proposition is evoked and then either affirmed or denied.[6][61] It involves deciding
what to believe and aims at determining whether the judged proposition is true or false.[62]
[63]
Various theories of judgment have been proposed. The traditionally dominant approach
is the combination theory. It states that judgments consist in the combination of concepts.[64]
On this view, to judge that "all men are mortal" is to combine the concepts "man" and
"mortal". The same concepts can be combined in different ways, corresponding to different
forms of judgment, for example, as "some men are mortal" or "no man is mortal".[65]

Other theories of judgment focus more on the relation between the judged proposition and
reality. According to Franz Brentano, a judgment is either a belief or a disbelief in the
existence of some entity.[64][66] In this sense, there are only two fundamental forms of
judgment: "A exists" and "A does not exist". When applied to the sentence "all men are
mortal", the entity in question is "immortal men", of whom it is said that they do not exist.[64]
[66]
Important for Brentano is the distinction between the mere representation of the content
of the judgment and the affirmation or the denial of the content.[64][66] The mere
representation of a proposition is often referred to as "entertaining a proposition". This is the
case, for example, when one considers a proposition but has not yet made up one's mind
about whether it is true or false.[64][66] The term "thinking" can refer both to judging and to
mere entertaining. This difference is often explicit in the way the thought is expressed:
"thinking that" usually involves a judgment whereas "thinking about" refers to the neutral
representation of a proposition without an accompanying belief. In this case, the proposition
is merely entertained but not yet judged.[19] Some forms of thinking may involve the
representation of objects without any propositions, as when someone is thinking about their
grandmother.[6]

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Reasoning is one of the most paradigmatic forms of thinking. It is the process of drawing
conclusions from premises or evidence. Types of reasoning can be divided into deductive and
non-deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is governed by certain rules of inference,
which guarantee the truth of the conclusion if the premises are true.[1][67] For example, given
the premises "all men are mortal" and "Socrates is a man", it follows deductively that
"Socrates is mortal". Non-deductive reasoning, also referred to as defeasible reasoning or
non-monotonic reasoning, is still rationally compelling but the truth of the conclusion is not
ensured by the truth of the premises.[68] Induction is one form of non-deductive reasoning,
for example, when one concludes that "the sun will rise tomorrow" based on one's
experiences of all the previous days. Other forms of non-deductive reasoning include the
inference to the best explanation and analogical reasoning.[69]

Fallacies are faulty forms of thinking that go against the norms of correct reasoning. Formal
fallacies concern faulty inferences found in deductive reasoning.[70][71] Denying the
antecedent is one type of formal fallacy, for example, "If Othello is a bachelor, then he is
male. Othello is not a bachelor. Therefore, Othello is not male".[1][72] Informal fallacies, on
the other hand, apply to all types of reasoning. The source of their flaw is to be found in the
content or the context of the argument.[73][70][74] This is often caused by ambiguous or vague
expressions in natural language, as in "Feathers are light. What is light cannot be dark.
Therefore, feathers cannot be dark".[75] An important aspect of fallacies is that they seem to
be rationally compelling on the first look and thereby seduce people into accepting and
committing them.[70] Whether an act of reasoning constitutes a fallacy does not depend on
whether the premises are true or false but on their relation to the conclusion and, in some
cases, on the context.[1]

Concept formation
Concepts are general notions that constitute the fundamental building blocks of thought.[76]
[77]
They are rules that govern how objects are sorted into different classes.[78][79] A person
can only think about a proposition if they possess the concepts involved in this proposition.
[80] For example, the proposition "wombats are animals" involves the concepts "wombat" and

"animal". Someone who does not possess the concept "wombat" may still be able to read the
sentence but cannot entertain the corresponding proposition. Concept formation is a form of
thinking in which new concepts are acquired.[79] It involves becoming familiar with the
characteristic features shared by all instances of the corresponding type of entity and
developing the ability to identify positive and negative cases. This process usually
corresponds to learning the meaning of the word associated with the type in question.[78][79]
There are various theories concerning how concepts and concept possession are to be
understood.[76]

According to one popular view, concepts are to be understood in terms of abilities. On this
view, two central aspects characterize concept possession: the ability to discriminate between
positive and negative cases and the ability to draw inferences from this concept to related

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concepts. Concept formation corresponds to acquiring these abilities.[80][81][76] It has been
suggested that animals are also able to learn concepts to some extend. This is due to their
ability to discriminate between different types of situations and to adjust their behavior
accordingly.[78][82]

Problem solving
In the case of problem solving, thinking aims at reaching a predefined goal by overcoming
certain obstacles.[7][1][79] This process often involves two different forms of thinking. On the
one hand, divergent thinking aims at coming up with as many alternative solutions as
possible. On the other hand, convergent thinking tries to narrow down the range of
alternatives to the most promising candidates.[1][83][84] Some researchers identify various
steps in the process of problem solving. These steps include recognizing the problem, trying
to understand its nature, identifying general criteria the solution should meet, deciding how
these criteria should be prioritized, monitoring the progress, and evaluating the results.[1]

An important distinction concerns the type of problem that is faced. For well-structured
problems, it is easy to determine which steps need to be taken to solve them, but executing
these steps may still be difficult.[1][85] For ill-structured problems, on the other hand, it is not
clear what steps need to be taken, i.e. there is no clear formula that would lead to success if
followed correctly. In this case, the solution may sometimes come in a flash of insight in
which the problem is suddenly seen in a new light.[1][85] Another way to categorize different
forms of problem solving is by distinguishing between algorithms and heuristics.[79] An
algorithm is a formal procedure in which each step is clearly defined. It guarantees success if
applied correctly.[1][79] The long multiplication usually taught in school is an example of an
algorithm for solving the problem of multiplying big numbers. Heuristics, on the other hand,
are informal procedures. They are rough rules-of-thumb that tend to bring the thinker closer
to the solution but success is not guaranteed in every case even if followed correctly.[1][79]
Examples of heuristics are working forward and working backward. These approaches
involve planning one step at a time, either starting and the beginning and moving forward or
starting at the end and moving backward. So when planning a trip, one could plan the
different stages of the trip from origin to destiny in the chronological order of how the trip
will be realized, or in the reverse order.[1]

Obstacles to problem solving can arise from the thinker's failure to take certain possibilities
into account by fixating on one specific course of action.[1] There are important differences
between how novices and experts solve problems. For example, experts tend to allocate more
time for conceptualizing the problem and work with more complex representations whereas
novices tend to devote more time to executing putative solutions.[1]

Deliberation and decision

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Deliberation is an important form of practical thinking. It aims at formulating possible
courses of action and assessing their value by considering the reasons for and against them.
[86] This involves foresight to anticipate what might happen. Based on this foresight, different

courses of action can be formulated in order to influence what will happen. Decisions are an
important part of deliberation. They are about comparing alternative courses of action and
choosing the most favorable one.[67][22] Decision theory is a formal model of how ideal
rational agents would make decisions.[79][87][88] It is based on the idea that they should
always choose the alternative with the highest expected value. Each alternative can lead to
various possible outcomes, each of which has a different value. The expected value of an
alternative consists in the sum of the values of each outcome associated with it multiplied by
the probability that this outcome occurs.[87][88] According to decision theory, a decision is
rational if the agent chooses the alternative associated with the highest expected value, as
assessed from the agent's own perspective.[87][88]

Various theorists emphasize the practical nature of thought, i.e. that thinking is usually
guided by some kind of task it aims to solve. In this sense, thinking has been compared to
trial-and-error seen in animal behavior when faced with a new problem. On this view, the
important difference is that this process happens inwardly as a form of simulation.[1] This
process is often much more efficient since once the solution is found in thought, only the
behavior corresponding to the found solution has to be outwardly carried out and not all the
others.[1]

Episodic memory and imagination

When thinking is understood in a wide sense, it includes both episodic memory and
imagination.[20] In episodic memory, events one experienced in the past are relived.[89][90][91]
It is a form of mental time travel in which the past experience is re-experienced.[91][92] But
this does not constitute an exact copy of the original experience since the episodic memory
involves additional aspects and information not present in the original experience. This
includes both a feeling of familiarity and chronological information about the past event in
relation to the present.[89][91] Memory aims at representing how things actually were in the
past, in contrast to imagination, which presents objects without aiming to show how things
actually are or were.[93] Because of this missing link to actuality, more freedom is involved in
most forms of imagination: its contents can be freely varied, changed, and recombined to
create new arrangements never experienced before.[94] Episodic memory and imagination
have in common with other forms of thought that they can arise internally without any
stimulation of the sensory organs.[95][94] But they are still closer to sensation than more
abstract forms of thought since they present sensory contents that could, at least in principle,
also be perceived.

Unconscious thought

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Conscious thought is the paradigmatic form of thinking and is often the focus of the
corresponding research. But it has been argued that some forms of thought also happen on
the unconscious level.[9][10][4][5] Unconscious thought is thought that happens in the
background without being experienced. It is therefore not observed directly. Instead, its
existence is usually inferred by other means.[10] For example, when someone is faced with an
important decision or a difficult problem, they may not be able to solve it straight away. But
then, at a later time, the solution may suddenly flash before them even though no conscious
steps of thinking were taken towards this solution in the meantime.[10][9] In such cases, the
cognitive labor needed to arrive at a solution is often explained in terms of unconscious
thoughts. The central idea is that a cognitive transition happened and we need to posit
unconscious thoughts to be able to explain how it happened.[10][9]

It has been argued that conscious and unconscious thoughts differ not just concerning their
relation to experience but also concerning their capacities. According to unconscious thought
theorists, for example, conscious thought excels at simple problems with few variables but is
outperformed by unconscious thought when complex problems with many variables are
involved.[10][9] This is sometimes explained through the claim that the number of items one
can consciously think about at the same time is rather limited whereas unconscious thought
lacks such limitations.[10] But other researchers have rejected the claim that unconscious
thought is often superior to conscious thought.[96][97] Other suggestions for the difference
between the two forms of thinking include that conscious thought tends to follow formal
logical laws while unconscious thought relies more on associative processing and that only
conscious thinking is conceptually articulated and happens through the medium of language.
[10][98]

In various disciplines

Phenomenology
Phenomenology is the science of the structure and contents of experience.[99][100] The term
"cognitive phenomenology" refers to the experiential character of thinking or what it feels
like to think.[4][101][102][6][103] Some theorists claim that there is no distinctive cognitive
phenomenology. On such a view, the experience of thinking is just one form of sensory
experience.[103][104][105] According to one version, thinking just involves hearing a voice
internally.[104] According to another, there is no experience of thinking apart from the
indirect effects thinking has on sensory experience.[4][101] A weaker version of such an
approach allows that thinking may have a distinct phenomenology but contends that
thinking still depends on sensory experience because it cannot occur on its own. On this view,
sensory contents constitute the foundation from which thinking may arise.[4][104][105]

An often-cited thought experiment in favor of the existence of a distinctive cognitive

phenomenology involves two persons listening to a radio broadcast in French, one who
understands French and the other who does not.[4][101][102][106] The idea behind this example
is that both listeners hear the same sounds and therefore have the same non-cognitive

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experience. In order to explain the difference, a distinctive cognitive phenomenology has to
be posited: only the experience of the first person has this additional cognitive character
since it is accompanied by a thought that corresponds to the meaning of what is said.[4][101]
[102][107]
Other arguments for the experience of thinking focus on the direct introspective
access to thinking or on the thinker's knowledge of their own thoughts.[4][101][102]

Phenomenologists are also concerned with the characteristic features of the experience of
thinking. Making a judgment is one of the prototypical forms of cognitive phenomenology.
[102][108] It involves epistemic agency, in which a proposition is entertained, evidence for and

against it is considered, and, based on this reasoning, the proposition is either affirmed or
rejected.[102] It is sometimes argued that the experience of truth is central to thinking, i.e.
that thinking aims at representing how the world is.[6][101] It shares this feature with
perception but differs from it in the way how it represents the world: without the use of
sensory contents.[6]

One of the characteristic features often ascribed to thinking and judging is that they are
predicative experiences, in contrast to the pre-predicative experience found in immediate
perception.[109][110] On such a view, various aspects of perceptual experience resemble
judgments without being judgments in the strict sense.[4][111][112] For example, the perceptual
experience of the front of a house brings with it various expectations about aspects of the
house not directly seen, like the size and shape of its other sides. This process is sometimes
referred to as apperception.[4][111] These expectations resemble judgments and can be wrong.
This would be the case when it turns out upon walking around the "house" that it is no house
at all but only a front facade of a house with nothing behind it. In this case, the perceptual
expectations are frustrated and the perceiver is surprised.[4] There is disagreement as to
whether these pre-predicative aspects of regular perception should be understood as a form
of cognitive phenomenology involving thinking.[4] This issue is also important for
understanding the relation between thought and language. The reason for this is that the pre-
predicative expectations do not depend on language, which is sometimes taken as an example
for non-linguistic thought.[4] Various theorists have argued that pre-predicative experience is
more basic or fundamental since predicative experience is in some sense built on top of it and
therefore depends on it.[112][109][110]

Another way how phenomenologists have tried to distinguish the experience of thinking from
other types of experiences is in relation to empty intentions in contrast to intuitive
intentions.[113][114] In this context, "intention" means that some kind of object is experienced.
In intuitive intentions, the object is presented through sensory contents. Empty intentions,
on the other hand, present their object in a more abstract manner without the help of sensory
contents.[113][4][114] So when perceiving a sunset, it is presented through sensory contents.
The same sunset can also be presented non-intuitively when merely thinking about it without
the help of sensory contents.[114] In these cases, the same properties are ascribed to objects.
The difference between these modes of presentation concerns not what properties are
ascribed to the presented object but how the object is presented.[113] Because of this

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commonality, it is possible for representations belonging to different modes to overlap or to
diverge.[6] For example, when searching one's glasses one may think to oneself that one left
them on the kitchen table. This empty intention of the glasses lying on the kitchen table are
then intuitively fulfilled when one sees them lying there upon arriving in the kitchen. This
way, a perception can confirm or refute a thought depending on whether the empty intuitions
are later fulfilled or not.[6][114]

Metaphysics
The mind–body problem concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between
minds, or mental processes, and bodily states or processes.[115] The main aim of philosophers
working in this area is to determine the nature of the mind and mental states/processes, and
how—or even if—minds are affected by and can affect the body.

Human perceptual experiences depend on stimuli which arrive at one's various sensory
organs from the external world and these stimuli cause changes in one's mental state,
ultimately causing one to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Someone's
desire for a slice of pizza, for example, will tend to cause that person to move his or her body
in a specific manner and in a specific direction to obtain what he or she wants. The question,
then, is how it can be possible for conscious experiences to arise out of a lump of gray matter
endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties. A related problem is to explain how
someone's propositional attitudes (e.g. beliefs and desires) can cause that individual's
neurons to fire and his muscles to contract in exactly the correct manner. These comprise
some of the puzzles that have confronted epistemologists and philosophers of mind from at
least the time of René Descartes.[116]

The above reflects a classical, functional description of how we work as cognitive, thinking
systems. However the apparently irresolvable mind–body problem is said to be overcome,
and bypassed, by the embodied cognition approach, with its roots in the work of Heidegger,
Piaget, Vygotsky, Merleau-Ponty and the pragmatist John Dewey.[117][118]

This approach states that the classical approach of separating the mind and analysing its
processes is misguided: instead, we should see that the mind, actions of an embodied agent,
and the environment it perceives and envisions, are all parts of a whole which determine
each other. Therefore, functional analysis of the mind alone will always leave us with the
mind–body problem which cannot be solved.[119]

Psychology
Main article: Cognitive psychology
Psychologists have concentrated on thinking as an intellectual exertion aimed at finding an
answer to a question or the solution of a practical problem. Cognitive psychology is a branch
of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory,
and language; all of which are used in thinking. The school of thought arising from this

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approach is known as cognitivism, which is interested in
how people mentally represent information processing. It
had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max
Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka,[120] and
in the work of Jean Piaget, who provided a theory of
stages/phases that describes children's cognitive
development.

Cognitive psychologists use psychophysical and Man thinking on a train journey

experimental approaches to understand, diagnose, and
solve problems, concerning themselves with the mental processes which mediate between
stimulus and response. They study various aspects of thinking, including the psychology of
reasoning, and how people make decisions and choices, solve problems, as well as engage in
creative discovery and imaginative thought. Cognitive theory contends that solutions to
problems either take the form of algorithms: rules that are not necessarily understood but
promise a solution, or of heuristics: rules that are understood but that do not always
guarantee solutions. Cognitive science differs from cognitive psychology in that algorithms
that are intended to simulate human behavior are implemented or implementable on a
computer. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of
relationships.

In developmental psychology, Jean Piaget was a pioneer in the study of the development of
thought from birth to maturity. In his theory of cognitive development, thought is based on
actions on the environment. That is, Piaget suggests that the environment is understood
through assimilations of objects in the available schemes of action and these accommodate to
the objects to the extent that the available schemes fall short of the demands. As a result of
this interplay between assimilation and accommodation, thought develops through a
sequence of stages that differ qualitatively from each other in mode of representation and
complexity of inference and understanding. That is, thought evolves from being based on
perceptions and actions at the sensorimotor stage in the first two years of life to internal
representations in early childhood. Subsequently, representations are gradually organized
into logical structures which first operate on the concrete properties of the reality, in the
stage of concrete operations, and then operate on abstract principles that organize concrete
properties, in the stage of formal operations.[121] In recent years, the Piagetian conception of
thought was integrated with information processing conceptions. Thus, thought is considered
as the result of mechanisms that are responsible for the representation and processing of
information. In this conception, speed of processing, cognitive control, and working memory
are the main functions underlying thought. In the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive
development, the development of thought is considered to come from increasing speed of
processing, enhanced cognitive control, and increasing working memory.[122]

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Positive psychology emphasizes the positive aspects of human psychology as equally
important as the focus on mood disorders and other negative symptoms. In Character
Strengths and Virtues, Peterson and Seligman list a series of positive characteristics. One
person is not expected to have every strength, nor are they meant to fully capsulate that
characteristic entirely. The list encourages positive thought that builds on a person's
strengths, rather than how to "fix" their "symptoms".[123]

Psychoanalysis

Main articles: Id, ego and super-ego and Unconscious mind

The "id", "ego" and "super-ego" are the three parts of the "psychic apparatus" defined in
Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in
terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the
uncoordinated instinctual trends are encompassed by the "id", the organized realistic part of
the psyche is the "ego", and the critical, moralizing function is the "super-ego".[124]

For psychoanalysis, the unconscious does not include all that is not conscious, rather only
what is actively repressed from conscious thought or what the person is averse to knowing
consciously. In a sense this view places the self in relationship to their unconscious as an
adversary, warring with itself to keep what is unconscious hidden. If a person feels pain, all
he can think of is alleviating the pain. Any of his desires, to get rid of pain or enjoy
something, command the mind what to do. For Freud, the unconscious was a repository for
socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put
out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression. However, the contents did not
necessarily have to be solely negative. In the psychoanalytic view, the unconscious is a force
that can only be recognized by its effects—it expresses itself in the symptom.[125]

The collective unconscious, sometimes known as collective subconscious, is a term of

analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a
society, a people, or all humanity, in an interconnected system that is the product of all
common experiences and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality. While
Freud did not distinguish between "individual psychology" and "collective psychology", Jung
distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal subconscious particular to each
human being. The collective unconscious is also known as "a reservoir of the experiences of
our species".[126]

In the "Definitions" chapter of Jung's seminal work Psychological Types, under the
definition of "collective" Jung references representations collectives, a term coined by Lucien
Lévy-Bruhl in his 1910 book How Natives Think. Jung says this is what he describes as the
collective unconscious. Freud, on the other hand, did not accept the idea of a collective
unconscious.

Related concepts and theories

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Laws of thought
Traditionally, the term "laws of thought" refers to three fundamental laws of logic: the law of
contradiction, the law of excluded middle, and the principle of identity.[127][128] These laws by
themselves are not sufficient as axioms of logic but they can be seen as important precursors
to the modern axiomatization of logic. The law of contradiction states that for any
proposition, it is impossible that both it and its negation are true: {\displaystyle \lnot (p\land
\lnot p)} . According to the law of excluded middle, for any proposition, either it
or its opposite is true: {\displaystyle p\lor \lnot p} . The principle of identity asserts
that any object is identical to itself: {\displaystyle \forall x(x=x)} .[127][128] There
are different conceptions of how the laws of thought are to be understood. The
interpretations most relevant to thinking are to understand them as prescriptive laws of how
one should think or as formal laws of propositions that are true only because of their form
and independent of their content or context.[128] Metaphysical interpretations, on the other
hand, see them as expressing the nature of "being as such".[128]

While there is a very wide acceptance of these three laws among logicians, they are not
universally accepted.[127][128] Aristotle, for example, held that there are some cases in which
the law of excluded middle is false. This concerns primarily uncertain future events. On his
view, it is currently "not ... either true or false that there will be a naval battle tomorrow".[127]
[128]
Modern intuitionist logic also rejects the law of excluded middle. This rejection is based
on the idea that mathematical truth depends on verification through a proof. The law fails for
cases where no such proof is possible, which exist in every sufficiently strong formal system,
according to Gödel's incompleteness theorems.[129][130][127][128] Dialetheists, on the other
hand, reject the law of contradiction by holding that some propositions are both true and
false. One motivation of this position is to avoid certain paradoxes in classical logic and set
theory, like the liar's paradox and Russell's paradox. One of its problems is to find a
formulation that circumvents the principle of explosion, i.e. that anything follows from a
contradiction.[131][132][133]

Some formulations of the laws of thought include a fourth law: the principle of sufficient
reason.[128] It states that everything has a sufficient reason, ground, or cause. It is closely
connected to the idea that everything is intelligible or can be explained in reference to its
sufficient reason.[134][135] According to this idea, there should always be a full explanation, at
least in principle, to questions like why the sky is blue or why World War II happened. One
problem for including this principle among the laws of thought is that it is a metaphysical
principle, unlike the other three laws, which pertain primarily to logic.[135][128][134]

Counterfactual thinking

Counterfactual thinking involves mental representations of non-actual situations and events,

i.e. of what is "contrary to the facts".[136][137] It is usually conditional: it aims at assessing
what would be the case if a certain condition had obtained.[138][139] In this sense, it tries to
answer "What if"-questions. For example, thinking after an accident that one would be dead

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if one had not used the seatbelt is a form of counterfactual thinking: it assumes, contrary to
the facts, that one had not used the seatbelt and tries to assess the result of this state of
affairs.[137] In this sense, counterfactual thinking is normally counterfactual only to a small
degree since just a few facts are changed, like concerning the seatbelt, while most other facts
are kept in place, like that one was driving, one's gender, the laws of physics, etc.[136] When
understood in the widest sense, there are forms of counterfactual thinking that do not involve
anything contrary to the facts at all.[139] This is the case, for example, when one tries to
anticipate what might happen in the future if an uncertain event occurs and this event
actually occurs later and brings with it the anticipated consequences.[138] In this wider sense,
the term "subjunctive conditional" is sometimes used instead of "counterfactual conditional".
[139]
[136] But the paradigmatic cases of counterfactual thinking involve alternatives to past events.

Counterfactual thinking plays an important role since we evaluate the world around us not
only by what actually happened but also by what could have happened.[137] Humans have a
greater tendency to engage in counterfactual thinking after something bad happened because
of some kind of action the agent performed.[138][136] In this sense, many regrets are
associated with counterfactual thinking in which the agent contemplates how a better
outcome could have been obtained if only they had acted differently.[137] These cases are
known as upward counterfactuals, in contrast to downward counterfactuals, in which the
counterfactual scenario is worse than actuality.[138][136] Upward counterfactual thinking is
usually experienced as unpleasant, since it presents the actual circumstances in a bad light.
This contrasts with the positive emotions associated with downward counterfactual thinking.
[137]
But both forms are important since it is possible to learn from them and to adjust one's
behavior accordingly to get better results in the future.[137][136]

Thought experiments
Thought experiments involve thinking about imaginary situations, often with the aim of
investigating the possible consequences of a change to the actual sequence of events.[140][141]
[142]
It is a controversial issue to what extend thought experiments should be understood as
actual experiments.[143][144][145] They are experiments in the sense that a certain situation is
set up and one tries to learn from this situation by understanding what follows from it.[146]
[143]
They differ from regular experiments in that imagination is used to set up the situation
and counterfactual reasoning is employed to evaluate what follows from it, instead of setting
it up physically and observing the consequences through perception.[147][141][143][142]
Counterfactual thinking, therefore, plays a central role in thought experiments.[148]

The Chinese room argument is a famous thought experiment proposed by John Searle.[149]
[150]
It involves a person sitting inside a closed-off room, tasked with responding to messages
written in Chinese. This person does not know Chinese but has a giant rule book that
specifies exactly how to reply to any possible message, similar to how a computer would react

18/32
to messages. The core idea of this thought experiment is that neither the person nor the
computer understands Chinese. This way, Searle aims to show that computers lack a mind
capable of deeper forms of understanding despite acting intelligently.[149][150]

Thought experiments are employed for various purposes, for example, for entertainment,
education, or as arguments for or against theories. Most discussions focus on their use as
arguments. This use is found in fields like philosophy, the natural sciences, and history.[141]
[145][144][143]
It is controversial since there is a lot of disagreement concerning the epistemic
status of thought experiments, i.e. how reliable they are as evidence supporting or refuting a
theory.[141][145][144][143] Central to the rejection of this usage is the fact that they pretend to be
a source of knowledge without the need to leave one's armchair in search of any new
empirical data. Defenders of thought experiments usually contend that the intuitions
underlying and guiding the thought experiments are, at least in some cases, reliable.[141][143]
But thought experiments can also fail if they are not properly supported by intuitions or if
they go beyond what the intuitions support.[141][142] In the latter sense, sometimes counter
thought experiments are proposed that modify the original scenario in slight ways in order to
show that initial intuitions cannot survive this change.[141] Various taxonomies of thought
experiments have been suggested. They can be distinguished, for example, by whether they
are successful or not, by the discipline that uses them, by their role in a theory, or by whether
they accept or modify the actual laws of physics.[142][141]

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is a form of thinking that is reasonable, reflective, and focused on

determining what to believe or how to act.[151][152][153] It holds itself to various standards, like
clarity and rationality. In this sense, it involves not just cognitive processes trying to solve the
issue at hand but at the same time meta-cognitive processes ensuring that it lives up to its
own standards.[152] This includes assessing both that the reasoning itself is sound and that
the evidence it rests on is reliable.[152] This means that logic plays an important role in
critical thinking. It concerns not just formal logic, but also informal logic, specifically to avoid
various informal fallacies due to vague or ambiguous expressions in natural language.[152][154]
[155]
No generally accepted standard definition of "critical thinking" exists but there is
significant overlap between the proposed definitions in their characterization of critical
thinking as careful and goal-directed.[153] According to some versions, only the thinker's own
observations and experiments are accepted as evidence in critical thinking. Some restrict it to
the formation of judgments but exclude action as its goal.[153]

A concrete everyday example of critical thinking, due to John Dewey, involves observing
foam bubbles moving in a direction that is contrary to one's initial expectations. The critical
thinker tries to come up with various possible explanations of this behavior and then slightly
modifies the original situation in order to determine which one is the right explanation.[153]
[156]
But not all forms of cognitively valuable processes involve critical thinking. Arriving at

19/32
the correct solution to a problem by blindly following the steps of an algorithm does not
qualify as critical thinking. The same is true if the solution is presented to the thinker in a
sudden flash of insight and accepted straight away.[153]

Critical thinking plays an important role in education: fostering the student's ability to think
critically is often seen as an important educational goal.[153][152][157] In this sense, it is
important to convey not just a set of true beliefs to the student but also the ability to draw
one's own conclusions and to question pre-existing beliefs.[157] The abilities and dispositions
learned this way may profit not just the individual but also society at large.[152] Critics of the
emphasis on critical thinking in education have argued that there is no universal form of
correct thinking. Instead, they contend that different subject matters rely on different
standards and education should focus on imparting these subject-specific skills instead of
trying to teach universal methods of thinking.[153][158] Other objections are based on the idea
that critical thinking and the attitude underlying it involve various unjustified biases, like
egocentrism, distanced objectivity, indifference, and an overemphasis of the theoretical in
contrast to the practical.[153]

Positive thinking

Positive thinking is an important topic in positive psychology.[159] It involves focusing one's

attention on the positive aspects of one's situation and thereby withdrawing one's attention
from its negative sides.[159] This is usually seen as a global outlook that applies especially to
thinking but includes other mental processes, like feeling, as well.[159] In this sense, it is
closely related to optimism. It includes expecting positive things to happen in the future.[160]
[159] This positive outlook makes it more likely for people to seek to attain new goals.[159] It

also increases the probability of continuing to strive towards pre-existing goals that seem
difficult to reach instead of just giving up.[160][159]

The effects of positive thinking are not yet thoroughly researched, but some studies suggest
that there is a correlation between positive thinking and well-being.[159] For example,
students and pregnant women with a positive outlook tend to be better at dealing with
stressful situations.[160][159] This is sometimes explained by pointing out that stress is not
inherent in stressful situations but depends on the agent's interpretation of the situation.
Reduced stress may therefore be found in positive thinkers because they tend to see such
situations in a more positive light.[159] But the effects also include the practical domain in
that positive thinkers tend to employ healthier coping strategies when faced with difficult
situations.[159] This effects, for example, the time needed to fully recover from surgeries and
the tendency to resume physical exercise afterward.[160]

But it has been argued that whether positive thinking actually leads to positive outcomes
depends on various other factors. Without these factors, it may lead to negative results. For
example, the tendency of optimists to keep striving in difficult situations can backfire if the
course of events is outside the agent's control.[160] Another danger associated with positive
thinking is that it may remain only on the level of unrealistic fantasies and thereby fail to

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make a positive practical contribution to the agent's life.[161] Pessimism, on the other hand,
[160]
may
[162] have positive effects since it can mitigate disappointments by anticipating failures.

Positive thinking is a recurrent topic in the self-help literature.[163] Here, often the claim is
made that one can significantly improve one's life by trying to think positively, even if this
means fostering beliefs that are contrary to evidence.[164] Such claims and the effectiveness of
the suggested methods are controversial and have been criticized due to their lack of
scientific evidence.[164][165] In the New Thought movement, positive thinking figures in the
law of attraction, the pseudoscientific claim that positive thoughts can directly influence the
external world by attracting positive outcomes.[166]

See also

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Further reading
Bayne, Tim (21 September 2013), "Thoughts", New Scientist. 7-page feature article on
the topic.
Fields, R. Douglas, "The Brain Learns in Unexpected Ways: Neuroscientists have
discovered a set of unfamiliar cellular mechanisms for making fresh memories",
Scientific American, vol. 322, no. 3 (March 2020), pp. 74–79. "Myelin, long considered
inert insulation on axons, is now seen as making a contribution to learning by
controlling the speed at which signals travel along neural wiring." (p. 79.)
Simon, Herbert, Models of Thought, vol I, 1979, ISBN 0-300-02347-2; Vol II, 1989,
ISBN 0-300-04230-2, Yale University Press.

External links

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