This dialogue is on the nature of thought and thinking. The five disputants are Socrates, an imaginary neuroscientist from California, an Oxford don from the 1950s, a Scottish post-doctoral student, and John Locke. The discussion takes place in Elysium in the late afternoon. They examine the idea that thinking is an activity of the mind or the brain, whether the medium of thought consists of words or ideas, whether thoughtful speech is speech accompanied by thought, (...) whether thinking, i.e. reasoning and inferring, is a process, and what is meant by the claim that ‘thinking is the last interpretation’. The dialogue ends when the protagonists go to dinner, but will be resumed after the meal. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore how, and to what extent, Italian thought – by its focalization on pre-modern theoretical issues and its distance from classical modern topics, such as the philosophy of conscience or the transcendence of language – can offer a different insight on contemporary social theory and critical theory, after the dissolution of the idea of totality as a foundational concept of modernity. In the last decades, a frame named ‘Italian theory’ has started to (...) circulate in international theoretical debates, often with the aim of replacing the exhausted paradigms of poststructuralism, postmodernism and deconstructionism. Indeed, ‘Italian thought’ seems to offer new insights, thinking about the ‘post-totality’ era in a different way. In the article we present a synthetic cartography of Italian thought and we analyse the way in which it can contribute to design new horizons for social theory. (shrink)

Thinking is often thought of as a kind of connecting—in the sense of searching for pre-existent connections and exhibiting what has been found; in the sense of making connections and exhibiting what has been made; or in some third sense which combines the former with the latter in some way. In explicitly or implicitly employing certain methods in one’s thinking one ipso facto uses so-called “categories,” i.e., concepts of high generality, characterizing aspects of whatever exists or can (...) be thought. Aristotle, who conceived of thinking mainly as finding, Kant, who conceived of it mainly as making and some of their successors set themselves the task of listing, clarifying and justifying a set of categories, which in each case was judged by the philosopher who propounded it to be uniquely necessary and thus absolutely preferable to any competing set. (shrink)

First published in 1977, Emotion, Thought and Therapy is a study of Hume and Spinoza and the relationship of philosophical theories of the emotions to psychological theories of therapy. Jerome Neu argues that the Spinozists are closer to the truth; that is, that thoughts are of greater importance than feelings in the classification and discrimination of emotional states. He then contends that if the Spinozists are closer to the truth, we have the beginning of an argument to show that (...) Freudian or analytic therapies make philosophic sense. Throughout the book, careful attention is paid to modern discussions in philosophy of mind and psychology, and materials from anthropology and other relevant disciplines are considered. At the centre of the discussion is the notion of ‘thought-dependence’. Therapies for psychological disorders are placed along a spectrum in accordance with the role they assign to thoughts. The Spinozist view of the emotions can be seen as at the extreme thought end of a corresponding spectrum of theories of the emotions. The book suggests that this stream may help explain the spectrum of therapeutic theories and the possibilities that exist for psychological development and change. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy, psychology and counselling. (shrink)

This article relates four concepts present in the thought of Édouard Glissant (poetics, optionality, exteriority, and unlearning) to show that they are also present in different authors of decolonial theory. These concepts lead us out of the framework of modern hypercriticism and allow us to enter into a philosophy of relation that opens up new possibilities for intercultural encounters. Through the constant recourse to the contrast between Glissant and the decolonial school, the text goes through its classic themes, such (...) as the coloniality of power, knowledge and being, and decolonial pedagogy and feminism. (shrink)

The Way of Ideas died an ignoble death, committed to the flames by behaviorist empiricists. Ideas, pictures in the head, perished with the Way. By the time those empiricists were supplanted at the helm by functionalists and causal theorists, a revolution had taken place in linguistics and the last thing anyone wanted to do was revive images as the medium of thought. Currently, some but not all cognitive scientists think that there probably are mental images - experiments in cognitive (...) psychology (e.g. Shepard and Metzler 1971) have shown it to be plausible to posit mental images. Even so, the phenomenon of mental imagery has been largely regarded as peripheral in cognition, perhaps even epiphenomenal. Images cannot fix the content of thought (intentions, rules), the Wittgenstein story went. The central processes of thought, so the post-Wittgenstein story goes, require a propositional representation system, a language of thought, universal and modeled on the machine languages of computers. The language of thought is compositional, productive, and, leading advocates argue, has a causal semantics. Images lack all of these essential qualities and so are hopeless as key players in thinking. (shrink)

Some Thoughts on Thinking is a work dealing with the issues one faces when one attempts to construct non-arbitrary beliefs about ourselves and our surroundings. The text opens up with a discussion of the similarities and differences between science, theology, philosophy and tradition. This initial discussion provides the foundation for a deeper push into what is, and what is not, a recommendable and non-arbitrary belief. No previous exposure to philosophy is assumed and the language of the work is free (...) of complex philosophical terms. (shrink)

Minnich and Patton gather an eclectic cohort of thought-leaders to reflect on the importance and intricacies of thinking in their respective fields. Philosophically framed and interdisciplinary in approach, this illuminating book is designed to be supremely useful to readers from all backgrounds.

I do not think that the world or the sciences would ever have suggested to me any philosophical problems. What has suggested philosophical problems to me is things which other philosophers have said about the world or the sciences. (G.E. Moore, 1942, p. 14).

At its core, this exhilarating collection of essays, interviews, and correspondence spanning the years 1988 through 2018, and reaching back a decade or more previous is about the simple concept that ideas matter. And not only that ideas matter. But that ideas in this case, through the lens of two engaged intellectuals mutate, inform, inspire, and ultimately provide more fuel for thought, the actions that follow such thought, and for carrying on, and doing the work.

This chapter provides an argument that intentional ascent requires semantic ascent, on the grounds that intentional ascent requires the ability “to hold a thought in mind” in a way that can only be done if the thought is linguistically vehicled. It tries to explain that there is an important class of thoughts that is in principle unavailable to nonlinguistic creatures. It also explores how language can function as a cognitive tool. Many of these functions do not actually require (...) a full-fledged language. If language is to have a distinctive, unique, and essential cognitive function, so that the difference between linguistic and nonlinguistic cognition is qualitative rather than merely quantitative, then it should be investigated further. The chapter takes into account many aspects of language where language functions as a cognitive tool: memory augmentation; environmental simplification; coordination; transcending path-dependent learning; control loops; and data manipulation and representation. (shrink)

Our ability to attribute mental states to others ("to mentalize") has been the subject of philosophical and psychological studies for a very long time, yet the role of language acquisition in the development of our mentalizing abilities has been largely understudied. This book addresses this gap in the philosophical literature. -/- The book presents an account of how false belief reasoning is impacted by language acquisition, and it does so by placing it in the larger context of the issue, how (...) language impacts cognition in general. The work provides the reader with detailed and critical literature reviews, and draws on them to argue that language acquisition helps false belief reasoning by boosting the ability to create schemata that facilitate processing of information in some social contexts. According to this framework, it is a combination of syntactic clues and cultural narratives that helps the child to solve the classic false belief task. -/- The book provides a novel, original account of how language helps false belief reasoning, while also giving the reader a broad, precise and well-documented picture of the debate around some of the most fundamental issues in social cognition. (shrink)

Aristotle's discussion of the motivation of the good person is both complicated and cryptic. Depending on which passages are emphasized, he may seem to be presenting a Kantian style view according to which the good person is and ought to be motivated primarily by reason, or a Humean style view according to which desires and feelings are or ought to be in charge. In this book, Paula Gottlieb argues that Aristotle sees the thought, desires and feelings of the good (...) person as interdependent in a way that is sui generis, and she explains how Aristotle's concept of choice is an innovative and pivotal element in his account. Gottlieb's interpretation casts light on Aristotle's account of moral education, on the psychology of good, bad and half-bad people, and on the aesthetic and even musical side to being a good person. (shrink)

Social organization in microcosm : anomalies and ritual concentrate conflict -- Comparing on a grand scale : elementary forms do the organizing -- Building fundamental explanations : rituals do the institutionalizing, and institutions make change -- Analytic method is also ritual peacemaking : thinking in circles helps to defuse conflict -- Douglas's contribution to understanding human thought and conflict.

Motivations and on the method -- Juxtaposing Jewish and Greek conceptions of time as the first cause -- Ideals and reality -- The learning curves: a functional model for knowledge acquisition -- Marx as the Kasrilovker Melamed or the Kasrilovker Melamed as Marx?.

An Essay on the Relation Between Thought and Language Christopher Gauker. things possible? How, having once perceived the herds by the lake, does the agent remember this for later use? My answer is that one way he may do it is ...

Theory of Thought and Knowledge is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1897. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become (...) rare and historical knowledge for the future. (shrink)

Cognitive approaches to early medieval texts have tended to focus on the mind in isolation. By examining the interplay between mental and physical acts deployed in Old English poetry and prose, this study identifies new patterns and offers new perspectives. In these texts, the performance of right or wrong action is not linked to natural inclination dictated by birth; it is the fruit of right or wrong thinking. The mind consciously directed and controlled is open to external influences, both (...) human and diabolical. This struggle to produce right thought and action reflects an emerging democratization of heroism that crosses societal and gender boundaries, becoming intertwined with socio-political, soteriological, and cultural meaning. In a study of influential prose texts, including the Alfredian translations and the sermons of Ælfric, alongside close readings of three poems from different genres – The Seafarer, The Battle of Maldon, and Juliana –, Ponirakis demonstrates how early medieval authors create patterns of interaction between the mental and the physical. These provide hidden keys to meaning which, once found, unlock new readings of much studied texts. In addition, these patterns of balance, distribution, and opposition, reveal a startling similarity of approach across genre and form, taking the discussion of the early medieval conception of the mind, soul, and emotion, not to mention conventional generic divisions, onto new ground. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Doing business ethics and conducting ethical business has to be much more than conducting a rational enquiry. Much also depends on the motivation of individuals and how a positive moral vision of business can unite intellectual and affective approaches to the conduct of business. The author is a lecturer in Philosophy at Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, and a Research Associate at the Local Government Centre at Warwick Business School. He is also an independent organisation development consultant specialising in helping (...) organisations develop their learning processes and value‐based forms of leadership. (shrink)

Human beings, as a species, have two outstanding characteristics compared to all other species: the apparently enormous elaboration of our thought through language and symbolism, and the elaboration of our forms of social organization. The obvious question is whether these two characteristics are connected. ... Our view is that they are connected intimately. Thought and social organization are two aspects of the same larger phenomenon, or better the same larger bundle of phenomena. ... Here we bring the two (...) streams of analysis together, in what is at once an exposition of the basic structure of the systems of thought that organizations are built upon and, eo ipso, an exposition of the organizational basis and origin of human thinking as such. The resulting reconfiguring of questions, answers, and methods, we believe, cannot be described otherwise than as a new science and not just a new paradigm. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue the idea that, by analyzing the relationship between thought and language, Aristotle decisively contributed to the foundation of the philosophy of language. Researching language in its relations with thinking and existence, the Stagirite demonstrated that the language is not just a communication tool, but a method of knowledge or of “deciphering” the world. The word reflects the reality throughthought and, in this situation, is not a slave of ideas or concepts. On the contrary, (...) it even represents a decisive factor in their elaboration.Despite its authority, Aristotelian thinking about language, along with the whole tradition that it generated, met with a strong critical reaction among contemporary philosophers, especially among those of the analytic school.My conclusion is that even if some Aristotelian theses about language are criticized by modern thinkers, this falls under the normal evolution of science. It seems excessive to hold Aristotle responsible for not providing solutions to contemporary problems. As for the rest, the Stagirite continues to be present among us and teach us extremely difficult and enlightening lessons. (shrink)

Do we think in natural language? Or is language only for communication? Much recent work in philosophy and cognitive science assumes the latter. In contrast, Peter Carruthers argues that much of human conscious thinking is conducted in the medium of natural language sentences. However, this does not commit him to any sort of Whorfian linguistic relativism, and the view is developed within a framework that is broadly nativist and modularist. His study will be essential reading for all those interested (...) in the nature and significance of natural language, whether they come from philosophy, psychology or linguistics. (shrink)

Originally published in 1990, this book centres on a certain way of surveying a variety of theories of language, and on outlining a new proposal of meaning within the framework set by the survey. One of the key features of both survey and proposal is the insistence on the need to locate theories of language within a large framework that includes questions about the nature of thought and about general ontological questions as well. The book deals in an interconnected (...) way with both very general and specific issues. At one end of this spectrum there are discussions of the contrast between realist and nominalist ontologies, while at the other are analyses of specific lexical items of English. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented at the National Seminar on the Limits of Thought and Beyond, organized by the Department of Philosophy, Assam University, Silchar, India, during 28-29 November 2011.

This book sets out a Kant-inspired theory of modality, driven by a methodology which takes seriously questions about the function of modal judgment as a guide to a metaphysics of modality. It argues that we need logical modal concepts as a condition on our ability to think, and metaphysical modal concepts as a condition on our ability to think objectively. Concordant with this, it argues that logical necessity has its source in the laws of thought and that metaphysical necessity (...) is relative to conditions on objective thought. This this account of metaphysical necessity, which is termed “Modal Transcendentalism”, is then further developed, covering questions concerning necessary and contingent existence, de re necessity, essentialism, and modal epistemology. (shrink)

Consider the idea that a natural language like English is in the first instance incorporated into the system of representation one thinks with. This ‘incorporation’ view is compared with a translation or ‘decoding’ view of communication. Compositional semantics makes sense only given the implausible decoding view.

Although the history of centrally planned economies has been widely studied, the development of socialist thinking on the subject has remained largely uncharted. In this 1991 work, Pekka Sutela presents a detailed analysis of Soviet economic thought and theory. Dr Sutela traces the competing currents in the Marxist tradition of socialist economies from the Revolution to the present day. In particular he shows how the Gorbachev economic reform programme of 1987 rose from the work of Nobel Prize economist (...) L. V. Kantorovich and his followers. However, this programme failed and the author explains in some detail why this happened. Since then, Soviet economists have tried to abandon their traditional theory of central planning and move along the path and long established contacts with leading Soviet economists, Pekka Sutela is able to show how Soviet economic thinking has moved from dogmatism through reformism to pragmatism. (shrink)

The relationship between thought and language has been of central importance to philosophy ever since Plato characterised thinking as 'a dialogue the soul has with itself'. In this volume, several major twentieth-century philosophers of mind and language make further contributions to the debate. Among the questions addressed are: is language conceptually prior to thought, or vice versa? Must thought take place 'in' a medium? To what extent can creatures without language be credited with thoughts? Do we (...) have to suppose that thinking involves the use of concepts? What does it mean to have and deploy a concept? How do recent psychological experiments bear on these issues? Are beliefs, desires, hopes and fears rightly construed as 'attitudes towards propositions'? Should twentieth-century philosophy be conceived of in terms of Michael Dummett's distinction between 'analytical philosophy' and the 'philosophy of thought'? (shrink)

This dialogue on thought and language is a sequel to my dialogue ‘Thought and Thinking’, but can be read independently of it. The five disputants are the same as in the previous dialogue, namely Socrates; an imaginary neuroscientist from California ; an Oxford don from the 1950s ; a Scottish post-doctoral student; and John Locke. The discussion takes place in Elysium in the early evening after dinner. They discuss the relationship between what one thinks and what one (...) says, examine the reasons for supposing that there must be a language of thought and show why there cannot be one, investigate the supposition that thought must have a medium – that one must think in something – and demonstrate that it cannot have one. They investigate whether there can be non-linguistic thinking and whether non language-using animals can be said to think, and determine the limits of thought and thinking. (shrink)

CONTRASTING PREJUDICES TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD How can one say something false? How can one even think such a thing? Since, for example, all men are mortal, ...

Explores various facets of the Islamic search for knowledge, with essays on aspects of Thought or Travel.

Near the end of his target article, Baron argues that we need to address the question of how to conduct education in consequentialist decision making. However, recent trends in education have deemphasized and denigrated decentered and decontextualized thought. It is argued here that perspective decentering and decontextualized thinking are absolutely essential to the development of consequentialist reasoning.

I will consider the question what the meaning of the unity of thought and thing is. This unity is introduced by Hegel as the main precondition of the science of logic, when it is understood as the definiens of the logical. I will try to clarify this issue primarily by interpreting chosen fragments in the chapter “Force and the Understanding, Phenomenon and the supra-sensible World” in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Here, Hegel exposes the result of the dialectics of the (...) passage “Perception or Thing and Illusion” as the “unity of the being-for-itself and the beingfor- other”, and along with this result, he notes: “At first it seems they only pertain to the form of moments; but this being-for-itself and being for-other is also content itself,…” . I understand this unity as that between thought and thing. It appears when categories, as Hegel expressed it in logic and Encyclopedia, are seen in themselves. I determine the relationship between the speculative observance and unity of thought and thing as follows:categories are seen in themselves when they neither relate to instances of an extralogical area of use, nor are they considered as the content of meta-level predicates. When, for example, I observe the eidos “difference” in itself, than I think about this as a thing of “difference“, that is, as a differentiation. The unity of thought and thing is a derivation of itself and not the result of an interpretation or outside manipulation. I will try to profile my interpretation by criticizing other approaches. (shrink)

In this exciting new collection, a distinguished international group of philosophers contribute new essays on central issues in philosophy of language and logic, in honor of Michael Dummett, one of the most influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. The essays are focused on areas particularly associated with Professor Dummett. Five are contributions to the philosophy of language, addressing in particular the nature of truth and meaning and the relation between language and thought. Two contributors discuss time, in particular (...) the reality of the past. The last four essays focus on Frege and the philosophy of mathematics. The volume represents some of the best work in contemporary analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Carruthers offers a refreshing piece of “substantive philosophy.” Going beyond the limitations of pure analysis, he adopts a methodology which is one part analysis, one part empirical data, and a heavy dose of inference to the best explanation. The overarching goal is to advance the commonsense—yet unfashionable—thesis that natural language is the primary medium of thought, and to defend the related cognitive conception of NL. In particular, Carruthers argues that imaginative phonological representations of “inner speech” are constitutive of conscious (...) thoughts, and that thinking involves operations on such symbols. While there is still a role for mentalese cognition, such thinking is always unconscious, and probably of limited innate conceptual resources. The weak thesis is that, of natural necessity, all conscious propositional thought requires NL. The strong thesis is that, of natural necessity, distinctively human thoughts can only be tokened in natural language—hence even much of our unconscious thinking occurs in English. (shrink)

A new ethic for thinking and being -- Situation -- Pressure points -- Fear -- Through a glass, darkly -- Yoga for the mind -- The fourteen poses -- Practicing yoga for the mind -- Meridians of thought -- Slow thought -- Philosophical thinking is yoga for the mind -- Meridians of thought: mapping the pathways of thinking -- The body and the five meridians of thought -- The meridians of thought: The (...) thoughtractys -- The five meridians of thought: distinction, perspective, relation, movement, sense. (shrink)

First of all, I have spoken so far of the history of Greek thought. It would be more correct to speak of Graceo-Roman thought. Certainly, the Latins were not inventors, in science or in philosophy. But, if one thinks of what our knowledge of Greek ...