In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to 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 systems of ideas brought about by these processes.
173-418: Think is the act of creating a thought. Think or Thinks may also refer to: Think Various theories of thinking have been proposed, some of which 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
346-539: A castration phobia as sons do, so this syndrome seems to be reserved for the opposite sex. Feminist psychoanalysts debate whether the father of psychoanalysis might have been a victim of sexism in this case. To compensate for the perceived disadvantage, they postulate a Jocasta complex consisting of an incestuous desire of mothers for their infant sons; but other analysts point out that Sophocles' Iokasta doesn't exhibit this behaviour. The witch's special interest in little Hansel (while she merely abuses his sister as
519-615: A castration complex. The myth of Oedipus is about the attempt to liberate the 'amputated' potency of the id, but fails because of the remaining unconscious motives. As the ego is overwhelmed by the punitive fear of the moral content of its ‘preconscious’ superego, it cuts off the instinctive desire for knowledge from itself (blinds itself). Attempts to find a female equivalent of the Oedipus complex have not yielded good results. According to Freud, girls, because of their anatomically different genitals, cannot identify with their father, nor develop
692-450: A causal factor of depression, publishing an influential paper in 1967 after a decade of research using the construct of schemas to explain the depression. Beck developed this empirically supported hypothesis for the cause of depression into a talking therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in the early 1970s. Attachment theory was developed theoretically by John Bowlby and formalized empirically by Mary Ainsworth . Bowlby
865-604: A changeless intelligible world. Instead, they only exist to the extent that they are instantiated. The mind learns to discriminate universals through abstraction from experience. This explanation avoids various of the objections raised against Platonism. Conceptualism is closely related to Aristotelianism. It states 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. It has been argued against these views that they have problems in accounting for
1038-483: A changeless realm different from the sensible world. Examples include the forms of goodness, beauty, unity, and sameness. On this view, the difficulty of thinking consists in being unable 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. One problem for this view
1211-411: A clear definition of the features a representational system has to embody in order to have a linguistic structure. 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. On
1384-466: 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. 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
1557-413: A kitchen slave) offers much better evidence here, although such 'Crunchy house syndrome' should not as omnipresent as the Oedipus complex. In the later second part of the 20th century, several Freud researchers questioned the author's perception that his patients had informed him of childhood sexual abuse. Some of them argued that Freud had imposed his preconceived view on his patients, while others raised
1730-436: A low number of atomic representations. 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 . Fodor argues that the language of thought hypothesis is true as it explains how thought can have these features and because there
1903-487: A mistake in private, to his friend and colleague Wilhelm Fliess in 1898; but it took another 8 years before he had clarified the obscure connections sufficiently enough to publicly revoke his thesis, stating the reasons. (Freud's final position on the origin of neurosis in general is summarized in his late work The Discomfort in Culture . According to this, the causes do not lie in general sexual abuse of children, but in
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#17327659544102076-421: A more explicit explanation of what computation is. A further problem consists in explaining the sense in which thinking is a form of computing. The traditionally dominant view defines computation in terms of Turing machines , though contemporary accounts often focus on neural networks for their analogies. A Turing machine is capable of executing any algorithm based on a few very basic principles, such as reading
2249-463: A new problem. On this view, the important difference is that this process happens inwardly as a form of simulation. 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. When thinking is understood in a wide sense, it includes both episodic memory and imagination . In episodic memory, events one experienced in
2422-518: A notion that was rejected by Freud and his followers at the time. By 1936 the "Principle of Multiple Function" was clarified by Robert Waelder . He widened the formulation that psychological symptoms were caused by and relieved conflict simultaneously. Moreover, symptoms (such as phobias and compulsions ) each represented elements of some drive wish (sexual and/or aggressive), superego, anxiety, reality, and defenses. Also in 1936, Anna Freud , Sigmund's daughter, published her seminal book, The Ego and
2595-457: A priori with the conditions of mental apparatus ), ideologies such as Marxism and the phenomenon of technological as well as cultural creativity of mankind and its zoological closest relatives. The idea of psychoanalysis began to receive serious attention in the 1890s; Freud called it first Free Association . During this time, he worked as a neurologist in a children's hospital, where attempts were made to develop an effective treatment for
2768-484: A reaction to particular external stimuli. 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. In this sense, the capacity to solve problems not through existing habits but through creative new approaches
2941-519: 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 . 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. It has been argued, for example, that forms of daydreaming constitute non-linguistic thought. This issue
3114-470: A regular wall can be understood as computing an algorithm since they are "isomorphic to the formal structure of the program" in question under the right interpretation. 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. A great variety of types of thinking are discussed in
3287-477: A research tool into childhood development, and is still used to treat certain mental disturbances. In the 1960s, Freud's early thoughts on the childhood development of female sexuality were challenged; this challenge led to the development of a variety of understandings of female sexual development, many of which modified the timing and normality of several of Freud's theories. Several researchers followed Karen Horney 's studies of societal pressures that influence
3460-493: A research tool, the experimental application of which actually made it possible to eliminate symptoms of this kind. Paralysed people could suddenly walk again, blind ones could see. Although this effect is not known to last long – as Freud discovered in own experiments – the phenomenon of hypnotic false-healing played a decisive role in convincing him of the psycho-traumatical causation of the multifaceted neurotic clinical picture. Freud's first attempt to explain neurotical symptoms
3633-409: 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. Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis
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#17327659544103806-399: 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
3979-440: A symbol from a cell, writing a symbol to a cell, and executing instructions based on the symbols read. 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. But computationalism does not only claim that thinking is in some sense similar to computation. Instead, it
4152-413: A technical elaboration of the three-instance model of the psyche and examined primarily the logical structure of the unconscious . Freud distinguished between the conscious and unconscious realms of the psyche and argued that the contents of unconscious largely determine cognition and behaviour . He found that many of the drives – since his structural model located in the ‘id’ – are repressed into
4325-641: A technique for bringing repressed content back into the consciousness, in particular the diagnostic interpretation of dreams . Overall, psychoanalysis is a method for the treatment of mental disorders . Founded in the early 1890s, initially in co-operation with Josef Breuer 's and others' clinical research, Freud continued to revise and refine theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. An encyclopaedic article quotes him with following cornerstones of psychoanalysis: Using similar psychoanalytical terms, Freud's earlier colleagues Alfred Adler and Carl Jung developed their own therapeutic methods,
4498-592: A time, either starting at 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. 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. There are important differences between how novices and experts solve problems. For example, experts tend to allocate more time for conceptualizing
4671-571: A ‘latency’ break – the Sleeping Beauty – between the ages of about 7 and 12 for benefit social-intellectual growth. Psychoanalysts place large emphasis on experiences of early childhood , try to overcome infantile amnesia . In traditional Freudian setting, the patient lies on a couch, and the analyst sits just behind or somehow out of sight. The patient should express all his thoughts, all secrets and dreams, including free associations and fantasies . In addition to its task of strengthening
4844-464: 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
5017-659: 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 . The terms "thought" and "thinking" refer to a wide variety of psychological activities. In their most common sense, they are understood as conscious processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. 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
5190-430: Is a theory developed by Sigmund Freud . It describes the human mind as an apparatus that emerged along the path of evolution and consists mainly of three functionally interlocking instances: a set of innate needs, a consciousness to satisfy them by ruling the muscular apparatus, and a memory for storing experiences that arises during this. Furthermore the theory includes insights into the effects of traumatic education and
5363-415: Is about Oedipus' own sexual desire addresses to his mother Jocasta – admittedly as an already genitally mature man and without knowing about the close blood relationship including an not less unconscious patricide – which the woman reciprocates just as unsuspectingly. Freud interprets the passage where Oedipus – after realising his serious violation of the moral-totemic incest taboo – pokes out his eyes with
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5536-397: 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
5709-414: Is associated with a sober, dispassionate, and rational approach to its topic while feeling involves a direct emotional engagement. 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. In this sense, they are often synonymous with the term "belief" and its cognates and may refer to
5882-420: Is claimed that thinking just is a form of computation or that the mind is a Turing machine. Computationalist theories of thought are sometimes divided into functionalist and representationalist approaches. Functionalist approaches define mental states through their causal roles but allow both external and internal events in their causal network. Thought may be seen as a form of program that can be executed in
6055-523: Is clearly defined. It guarantees success if applied correctly. 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. Examples of heuristics are working forward and working backward. These approaches involve planning one step at
6228-419: Is entertained, evidence for and against it is considered, and, based on this reasoning, the proposition is either affirmed or rejected. It is sometimes argued that the experience of truth is central to thinking, i.e. that thinking aims at representing how the world is. It shares this feature with perception but differs from it in the way how it represents the world: without the use of sensory contents. One of
6401-441: 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. 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. One criticism directed at associationism in general
6574-447: Is implemented by the brain or which other similarities to natural language it has. The language of thought hypothesis was first introduced by Jerry Fodor . 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
6747-446: Is impossible to have precisely defined concepts from the outset, respectively phenomena that from now on have been clarified without any gaps and contradictions. "Indeed, even physics would have missed out on its entire development if it had been forced to wait until its concepts of matter, energy, gravity and others reached the desirable clarity and precision." The psychologist Frank Sulloway points out in his book Freud, Biologist of
6920-431: 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. 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. According to some accounts, thinking happens not in
7093-492: Is indispensable for the diagnostic prozess ( sickness can only be realised as a deviation from health : the optimal cooperation of all mental-organic functions), but Freud had to be modest. He had to leave his model of human's soul in the unfinished state of a torso because – as he stated one last time in Moses and Monotheism – there was no well-founded primate research in the first half of 20th century. Without knowledge of
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7266-537: 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 , 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 experimental approaches to understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with
7439-456: Is light cannot be dark. Therefore, feathers cannot be dark". 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. 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. Concepts are general notions that constitute
7612-426: Is more basic or fundamental since predicative experience is in some sense built on top of it and therefore depends on it. 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 . In this context, "intention" means that some kind of object is experienced. In intuitive intentions ,
7785-427: Is mortal". 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. 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
7958-414: Is no good alternative explanation. 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. Computationalists have been especially interested in
8131-439: Is no longer the decisive factor here, but the specific function of each of the three instances. This new model did not replace the first one: it integrated it.) The Interpretation of Dreams includes the first comprehensive conceptualisation of Oedipus complex : The little boy admires his father because of the mental and physical advantages of the adult man and wants to become like him, but also comes into conflict with him over
8304-622: Is not a child's desire ), but as a method whose appropriation is open to everyone. In the Wednesday round of young psychoanalysis, academics and ‘uneducated’ worked together on an equal footing to rediscover the happiness lost in the Dark Continent of the human soul – not easy to understand for some outsiders. In order to counteract misunderstandings, Freud clearly sets out the only condition for being able to pursue this interest seriously in his treatise on The Question of Lay Analysis :
8477-422: 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. Another way to categorize different forms of problem solving is by distinguishing between algorithms and heuristics . An algorithm is a formal procedure in which each step
8650-403: Is not yet able to help himself due to inexperience. ) From the sum of what is shown and communicated, the analyst deduces unconscious conflicts with imposed traumas that are causing the patient's symptoms, his persona and character problems, and works out a diagnosis . This explanation of the origin of loss of mental health and the analytical processes as a whole confronts the patients ego with
8823-454: Is not. In a more restricted sense, only the most paradigmatic cases are considered thought. These involve conscious processes that are conceptual or linguistic and sufficiently abstract, like judging, inferring, problem solving, and deliberating. Sometimes the terms "thought" and "thinking" are understood in a very wide sense as referring to any form of mental process, conscious or unconscious. In this sense, they may be used synonymously with
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#17327659544108996-407: Is often combined with the language of thought hypothesis by interpreting these sequences as symbols whose order is governed by syntactic rules. 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
9169-451: 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 . Fallacies are faulty forms of thinking that go against the norms of correct reasoning. Formal fallacies concern faulty inferences found in deductive reasoning. Denying
9342-422: Is outperformed by unconscious thought when complex problems with many variables are involved. 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. But other researchers have rejected the claim that unconscious thought is often superior to conscious thought. Other suggestions for
9515-431: Is particularly relevant. 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. This view focuses on the idea that the relevant inner speech is a derivative form of regular outward speech. This sense overlaps with how behaviorism is understood more commonly in philosophy of mind since these inner speech acts are not observed by
9688-421: 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. There are various theories about
9861-401: Is said that they do not exist. 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. 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
10034-404: Is said. 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. 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. It involves epistemic agency, in which a proposition
10207-411: 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. According to behaviorism , thinking consists in behavioral dispositions to engage in certain publicly observable behavior as
10380-465: 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. Various types of thinking are discussed in 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
10553-451: 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. 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
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#173276595441010726-440: Is to explain how humans can learn and think about Platonic forms belonging to a different realm. 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. But this explanation depends on various assumptions usually not accepted in contemporary thought. Aristotelians hold that
10899-429: Is true or false. 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 . Some forms of thinking may involve
11072-480: The psychosexual phases , which categorised early childhood development into five stages depending on what sexual affinity a child possessed at the stage: His early formulation included the idea that because of societal restrictions, sexual wishes were repressed into an unconscious state, and that the energy of these unconscious wishes could be result in anxiety or physical symptoms. Early treatment techniques, including hypnotism and abreaction , were designed to make
11245-526: The Eros of Socratic-Platonic philosophy. Freud attached great importance to coherence of his structural model . The metapsychological specification of the functions and interlocking of the three instances was intended to ensure the full connectivity of this ‘psychic apparatus’ with biological sciences, in particular Darwin's theory of evolution of species, including mankind with his behaviour, natural thinking ability and technological creativity. Such insight
11418-475: The Phobia of a five-year-old boy . However, Freud not only discovered this complex and the 'oral fixatet' Syndrom of Narzissos' regress back into amniotic fluid (as far as possible given the state of science at the time), but also devised a hypothesis of healthy emotional development, which by nature completes in three successive stages: the oral, anal and genital phases . Whereby the sexual drive of latter takes
11591-477: The id and the ego's conscious values, which manifests itself in more or less conspicuous mental disorders, although Freud did not equate the statistical normality of our society with ‘healthy’. "Health can only be described in metapsychological terms." He discovered that the instinctive impulses are expressed most clearly – albeit still encoded – in the symbols of dreams as well as in the symptomatic detours of neuroticism and Freudian slips . Psychoanalysis
11764-444: The synthetic function of the ego as a mediator in psychic functioning, distinguishing such from autonomous ego functions (e.g. memory and intellect). These "ego psychologists" of the 1950s paved a way to focus analytic work by attending to the defenses (mediated by the ego) before exploring the deeper roots to the unconscious conflicts. In addition, there was growing interest in child psychoanalysis . Psychoanalysis has been used as
11937-549: The teleological element of his three-fold soul model, a desiring energy that links cause and purpose , instead of mere ‘effect’. This universal force embodies the psychicaly source that drives all instinctual needs of living beings, as well as the First Cause of their physicaly evolution. On this path, sexual behaviour realises Darwin's Law of Natural Selection by favouring the most fitting and aesthetically well-proportioned body forms in reproduction. Of course Freud
12110-606: The Mechanisms of Defense , outlining numerous ways the mind could shut upsetting things out of consciousness. When Hitler 's power grew, the Freud family and many of their colleagues fled to London. Within a year, Sigmund Freud died. In the United States, also following the death of Freud, a new group of psychoanalysts began to explore the function of the ego. Led by Heinz Hartmann , the group built upon understandings of
12283-641: The Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend that the theories and hypotheses of psychoanalysis are anchored in the findings of contemporary biology. He mentions the profound influence of Charles Darwin ‘s theory of evolution on Freud and quotes this sense from the writings of Haeckel , Wilhelm Fliess , Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis . In 1905, Freud published Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in which he laid out his discovery of
12456-460: The Oedipal model. For his work, Bowlby was shunned from psychoanalytical circles who did not accept his theories. Nonetheless, his conceptualization was adopted widely by mother-infant research in the 1970s. The predominant psychoanalytic theories can be organised into several theoretical schools. Although these perspectives differ, most of them emphasize the influence of unconscious elements on
12629-514: The ability to draw inferences from this concept to related concepts. Concept formation corresponds to acquiring these abilities. It has been suggested that animals are also able to learn concepts to some extent, due to their ability to discriminate between different types of situations and to adjust their behavior accordingly. In the case of problem solving , thinking aims at reaching a predefined goal by overcoming certain obstacles. This process often involves two different forms of thinking. On
12802-491: 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, but there is no universally accepted taxonomy summarizing all these types. 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. It involves deciding what to believe and aims at determining whether
12975-467: The ancient trap to pacify political conflicts among the groups of Neolithic mankind. (See Prometheus ' uprising against Zeus, who created Pandora as a fatal wedding gift for Epimetheus to divide and rule the titanic brothers; Plato's myth of spherical men cut into isolated individuals for the same reason; and the similarly resolved revolt of inferior gods in the Flood epic Atra-Hasis ). Nonetheless, due to
13148-443: 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". 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. This is often caused by ambiguous or vague expressions in natural language , as in "Feathers are light. What
13321-402: 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
13494-529: The brain but, rather, mental processes. Although Freud retained this theory throughout his life, he largely replaced it with the structural theory . Structural theory divides the psyche into the id , the ego , and the super-ego . The id is present at birth as the repository of basic instincts, which Freud called " Triebe " ("drives"). Unorganized and unconscious, it operates merely on the 'pleasure principle', without realism or foresight. The ego develops slowly and gradually, being concerned with mediating between
13667-447: The characteristic features of thinking. The theories listed here are not exclusive: it may be possible to combine some without leading to a contradiction. According to Platonism , thinking is a spiritual activity in which Platonic forms and their interrelations are discerned and inspected. This activity is understood as a form of silent inner speech in which the soul talks to itself. Platonic forms are seen as universals that exist in
13840-429: 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. On such a view, various aspects of perceptual experience resemble judgments without being judgments in the strict sense. For example, the perceptual experience of the front of a house brings with it various expectations about aspects of
14013-535: The child would therefore be the prerequisite for the later development of hysterical and other kinds of neurotical symptoms. It contradicts the seduction thesis that Freud reported in the same year about patients who expressed their "emphatic disbelief" in this respect: that they "had no feeling of remembering the infantile sexual scenes". In the course of his further research, Freud began to doubt his thesis that such abuse should be almost omnipresent in our society. Initially he expressed his suspicion of having made
14186-599: The conscious. There has also been considerable work done on consolidating elements of conflicting theories. There are some persistent conflicts among psychoanalysts regarding specific causes of certain syndromes, and some disputes regarding the ideal treatment techniques. In the 21st century, psychoanalytic ideas have found influence in fields such as childcare , education , literary criticism , cultural studies , mental health , and particularly psychotherapy . Though most mainstream psychoanalysts subscribe to modern strains of psychoanalytical thought, there are groups who follow
14359-415: 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 . 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
14532-403: The demands of innate needs and externally imposed behavioural rules that prohibit their satisfaction. Freud called the former the primary process , taking place predominantly in the unconscious, and the latter the secondary process of predominantly conscious, more or less coherent thoughts. Freud summarised this view in his first model of the soul. Known as the topological model , it divides
14705-509: The development of an Oedipal complex . Freud's theories, however, characterized no such phase. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex was at the centre of neurosis, and was the foundational source of all art, myth, religion, philosophy, therapy—indeed of all human culture and civilization. It was the first time that anyone in Freud's inner circle had characterised something other than the Oedipus complex as contributing to intrapsychic development,
14878-688: The development of women. In the first decade of the 21st century, there were approximately 35 training institutes for psychoanalysis in the United States accredited by the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), which is a component organization of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and there are over 3000 graduated psychoanalysts practicing in the United States. The IPA accredits psychoanalytic training centers through such "component organisations" throughout
15051-413: 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. Phenomenology is the science of the structure and contents of experience . The term "cognitive phenomenology" refers to
15224-422: The ego with its ability to think dialectical – Freud's primacy of intellect –, therapy also aims to induce transference . The patient thus projects his educated him mother and father as internalised in his superego since birth onto the analyst. As he once did as a baby and little child, he experiences again the feelings of helpless dependence, all the futile longing for love, anger, rage and urge for revenge on
15397-404: The empiricist tradition has been associationism , the view that thinking consists in the succession of ideas or images. This succession is seen as being governed by laws of association, which determine how the train of thought unfolds. 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
15570-508: The experiential character of thinking or what it feels like to think. 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. According to one version, thinking just involves hearing a voice internally. According to another, there is no experience of thinking apart from the indirect effects thinking has on sensory experience. A weaker version of such an approach allows that thinking may have
15743-401: The failing parents, but now with the possibility of processing these contents that have chaped his persona. ( All people who have been brought up in moralic culturs project irrational fears and hopes for happiness everywhere. The term Countertransference means that the analyst himself projects such content onto his patient; then he has an own open problem and has to go to his own analyst if he
15916-518: The first international congress of psychoanalysis held in Salzburg, Austria. Alfred Adler was one of the most active members in this society in its early years. The second congress of psychoanalysis took place in Nuremberg, Germany in 1910. At this congress, Ferenczi called for the creation of an International Psychoanalytic Association with Jung as president for life. A third congress
16089-399: The fundamental building blocks of thought. They are rules that govern how objects are sorted into different classes. A person can only think about a proposition if they possess the concepts involved in this proposition. 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
16262-457: The golden needle clasp of his wife's and mother's nightdress (while Jocasta commits suicide) as a manifestation of the same ‘cover-up’ mechanism that he began to uncover in the above-mentioned fantasies. In his eyes psychoanalysis works in opposite direction to this mechanism of preconscious self-delusion, by bringing the due to incest taboo have been repressed desires (the ‘id’) back into realm of inner perception, own conscious thinking. This raised
16435-407: The house not directly seen, like the size and shape of its other sides. This process is sometimes referred to as apperception . 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
16608-806: The ideas of id, ego, and superego in The Ego and the Id . In the book, he revised the whole theory of mental functioning, now considering that repression was only one of many defense mechanisms, and that it occurred to reduce anxiety. Hence, Freud characterised repression as both a cause and a result of anxiety. In 1926, in "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety", Freud characterised how intrapsychic conflict among drive and superego caused anxiety , and how that anxiety could lead to an inhibition of mental functions, such as intellect and speech. In 1924, Otto Rank published The Trauma of Birth , which analysed culture and philosophy in relation to separation anxiety which occurred before
16781-510: The instinctive social behaviour and other abilities of our genetically closest relatives in realm of animals, his thesis of the Darwinian primordial horde (as presented for discussion in Totem and Taboo ) cannot be tested and, where necessary, replaced by a realistic model. Horde life and its violent abolition via introduction of monogamy (as a political agreement between the sons who murdered
16954-464: The judged proposition is true or false. 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. 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
17127-467: The kitchen. This way, a perception can confirm or refute a thought depending on whether the empty intuitions are later fulfilled or not. The mind–body problem concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between minds , or mental processes, and bodily states or processes. 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
17300-508: The lack of ethological primate research, these ideas remained an unproven belief of palaeo-anthropological science – only a hypothesis or " just so story as a not unpleasant English critic wittily called it. But I mean it honours a hypothesis if it shows capable of creating context and understanding in new areas." The author illustrated the conflict of today's son with his father over his mother by naming it after Sophocles ' tragedy Oedipus , supplementing this view with case studies such as
17473-544: 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. 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 . An important view in
17646-757: The leader and with other members) in groups as a motivation for behavior in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego . In that same year, Freud suggested his dual drive theory of sexuality and aggression in Beyond the Pleasure Principle , to try to begin to explain human destructiveness. Also, it was the first appearance of his "structural theory" consisting of three new concepts id, ego, and superego . Three years later, in 1923, he summarised
17819-575: 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 system is linguistically structured if it fulfills these two requirements. 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. Apart from this abstract characterization, no further concrete claims are made about how human thought
17992-571: The living soul: The brain with its nervous system extending over the entire organism and the acts of consciousness. In Freud's view, therefore any number of phenomena can be integrated between " both endpoints of our knowledge " (including the findings of modern neurology), but this only contribute to the spatial " localisation of the acts of consciousness ", not to their understanding. With reference to Descartes, contemporary neuropsychoanalysts explain this situation as mind-body dichotomy , namely both as two total different kinds of 'stuff': an objekt and
18165-436: 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. Another problem shared by these positions is the difficulty of giving a satisfying account of how essences or concepts are learned by
18338-555: The meantime. 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. 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
18511-415: 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
18684-426: The mental states which either belong to an individual or are common among a certain group of people. 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". Various theories of thinking have been proposed. They aim to capture
18857-531: 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
19030-528: The methodical examination of one's own inner situation, wherever possible with assistance of an already experienced psychoanalyst. Psychoanalysis has been a controversial discipline from the outset and its effectiveness as a treatment remains contested, although its influence on psychology and psychiatry is undisputed. Psychoanalytic perspectives are also widely used outside the therapeutic field, for example in film and literary criticism , interpretation of fairy tales or philosophical concepts ( replacing Kant's
19203-466: The mind alone will always leave us with the mind–body problem which cannot be solved. 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 approach
19376-415: The mind is able to think about something by instantiating the essence of the object of thought. 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. In contrast to Platonism, these universals are not understood as Platonic forms existing in
19549-445: The mind through abstraction. Inner speech theories claim that thinking is a form of inner speech . This view is sometimes termed psychological nominalism . 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. Three central aspects are often ascribed to inner speech: it
19722-469: The more conscious parts on the other hand would aim to make these morally forbidden acts of childish pleasure unrecognisable, to cover up them. The interesting point for Freud here was not so much the secretiveness itself (a well-known behaviour of Victorian era ), but the following twofold realisation: That children – at that time considered as innocent little angels – initiate pleasurable actions of their own accord (have ‘drives’ at all, as later assigned to
19895-432: The most favorable one. Decision theory is a formal model of how ideal rational agents would make decisions. 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
20068-417: 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
20241-796: The neuronal-biochemical processes that permanently store experiences in the brain – like engraving the proverbial tabula rasa with some code – belongs to the physiological branch of science and lead in a different direction of research than the psychological question of what the differences between consciousness and unconsciousness are. After some thought about a suitable term, Freud called his new instrument and field of research psychoanalysis , introduced in his essay “Inheritance and Etiology of Neuroses”, written and published in French in 1896. In 1896, Freud also published his seduction theory , in which he assumed as certain that he had uncovered repressed memories of incidents of sexual abuse in each of his previous patients. This type of sexual excitations of
20414-409: The next generation through concrete or threatened punishments. Moral education creates fears of punitive violence or the deprive of love in the child's soul. They are stored neuronally in the preconscious and influences the consciousness in the sense of the imprinted rules of behaviour. (Freud's second model of the soul, the three-instance or structural model , introduces a clearer distinction. Topology
20587-527: 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. 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. In these cases, the same properties are ascribed to objects. The difference between these modes of presentation concerns not what properties are ascribed to
20760-407: 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. 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
20933-407: The organism into three areas or systems: The unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious. Sexual needs belong to the unconscious and are forced to remain there if the contents of conscious ward them off. This is the case in societys that generally consider all extra- and premarital sexual activity – including homoeroticism, that of biblical Onan and incest – to be a ‘sin’, passing this value on to
21106-404: The other who does not. The idea behind this example is that both listeners hear the same sounds and therefore have the same non-cognitive 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
21279-434: The other. In this sense, the history of an organism's experience determines which thoughts the organism has and how these thoughts unfold. 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". One form of associationism
21452-399: The past are relived. It is a form of mental time travel in which the past experience is re-experienced. 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
21625-442: The pathological defence mechanisms, makes him aware of them as well as the instinctive contents of the id that have been repressed by them, and thus helps him to better understand himself and the world in which he lives, was born and educated. Not least this includes the fact that the neurological branch of psychoanalysis recently provided evidence that the brain stores experiences in specialised neuronal networks (memory function of
21798-503: The perceiver is surprised. There is disagreement as to whether these pre-predicative aspects of regular perception should be understood as a form of cognitive phenomenology involving thinking. 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. Various theorists have argued that pre-predicative experience
21971-414: 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. Computationalist theories of thinking, often found in the cognitive sciences, understand thinking as a form of information processing. These views developed with the rise of computers in
22144-462: The polygamous forefather of the horde) embodies the evolutionary-theoretical as well as cultural-prehistorical core of psychoanalysis. Further important assumptions are based on it, such as the origin of Oedipus complex, the moral-totemic rules of behaviour and, not least, Freud's Unease in Culture . They stand in contrast to the religiously enigmatic reports about the origin of monogamous couples on earth as an expression of divine will, but closer to
22317-414: 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
22490-544: The precepts of a single psychoanalyst and their school of thought. Psychoanalytic ideas also play roles in some types of literary analysis such as archetypal literary criticism . Topographic theory was named and first described by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). The theory hypothesizes that the mental apparatus can be divided into the systems Conscious , Preconscious , and Unconscious . These systems are not anatomical structures of
22663-399: The premises to the thought of the conclusion. 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
22836-532: The present. 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. 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. Episodic memory and imagination have in common with other forms of thought that they can arise internally without any stimulation of
23009-424: The presented object but how the object is presented. Because of this commonality, it is possible for representations belonging to different modes to overlap or to diverge. 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
23182-465: The probability that this outcome occurs. 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. 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
23355-601: The problem and work with more complex representations whereas novices tend to devote more time to executing putative solutions. 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. 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
23528-505: The psychological aspects of the human mind with emphasis on repression, the dynamics of dreams, therapeutic relationships. Neuroimaging is one of the methods used to empirically validate psychoanalytic concepts. Ego psychology was initially suggested by Freud in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926), while major steps forward would be made through Anna Freud 's work on defense mechanisms , first published in her book The Ego and
23701-441: The question for Freud of the first origin of moral prohibitions. A field of research that led him deep into the evolutionary and cultural (prä)history of mankind (see Darwin's primal horde; its abolition through patricide in Totem and Taboo ) and which, according to his own information, he had to leave unfinished as an untested hypothesis due to the lack of primate research . In 1899, Freud's work had progressed far enough that he
23874-612: 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
24047-519: The relation between language and thought. One prominent version in contemporary philosophy is called the language of thought hypothesis . 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. This claim does not merely rest on an intuitive analogy between language and thought. Instead, it provides
24220-401: The representation of objects without any propositions, as when someone is thinking about their grandmother. 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
24393-479: The researcher but merely inferred from the subject's intelligent behavior. This remains true to the general behaviorist principle that behavioral evidence is required for any psychological hypothesis. One problem for behaviorism is that the same entity often behaves differently despite being in the same situation as before. This problem consists in the fact that individual thoughts or mental states usually do not correspond to one particular behavior. So thinking that
24566-582: The rest of the world, including countries such as Serbia, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and many others, as well as about six institutes directly in the United States. Freud founded the Psychological Wednesday Society in 1902, which Edward Shorter argues was the beginning of psychoanalysis as a movement. This society became the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1908 in the same year as
24739-424: 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". Representationalism, on the other hand, focuses on the representational features of mental states and defines thoughts as sequences of intentional mental states. In this sense, computationalism
24912-408: The second part of the 20th century, when various theorists saw thinking in analogy to computer operations. 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. But while this analogy has some intuitive attraction, theorists have struggled to give
25085-406: The self. In 1919, through "A Child is Being Beaten", he began to address the problems of self-destructive behavior and sexual masochism . Based on his experience with depressed and self-destructive patients, and pondering the carnage of World War I , Freud became dissatisfied with considering only oral and sexual motivations for behavior. By 1920, Freud addressed the power of identification (with
25258-413: The sensory organs. 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. 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 . Unconscious thought
25431-417: The sentence but cannot entertain the corresponding proposition. Concept formation is a form of thinking in which new concepts are acquired. 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
25604-407: The so called individual - and analytical psychology . Freud wrote some criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis. Later Freudian thinkers like Erich Fromm , Karen Horney , and Harry Stack Sullivan branched Psychoanalysis in different directions. Jacques Lacan 's work essentially represents a return to Freud. He described Freudian metapsychology as
25777-629: The so-called neurotic symptoms, but detailed examinations didn't reveal any organic defects. In the monograph written on this subject, Freud documents his suspicion that neurotic symptoms could have psychological causes. In 1885, Freud was given the opportunity to study at the Salpêtrière in Paris under the famous neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot . Charcot had specialised in the field of hysterical paralysis and anaesthesia and established hypnosis as
25950-404: The solution should meet, deciding how these criteria should be prioritized, monitoring the progress, and evaluating the results. 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. For ill-structured problems, on the other hand, it
26123-458: The subjekt that can'nt objectify itself. With regard to Freud's libido they call this dichotomy the "dual-aspect monism". It touches on the point of psychoanalysis that is most difficult to grasp with the means of empirically based sciences – in fact, only under Kant's assumption that living systems always make judgements about the phenomena they perceive with regard to the satisfaction of their immanent needs. Therefore, Freud conceptualised libido as
26296-428: The superego) and the ego performances its highest focus of conscious thinking in frontal lobe . In some respects Freud himself embodies the founder of this field of modern research. Parallel to the consolidation of psychoanalysis, however, he turned away from it with the argument that consciousness is directly given - not to be explained by insights into physiological details. Essentially, two things were known about
26469-444: The suspicion of conscious forgery. These are two different arguments. The latter questions whether Freud deliberately lied in order to make the allegedly unfounded psychoanalysis appear as a legitimate science; the former assumes an unknowingly committed act. Freud replied at various places in his work the same to both types of argument: That natural science is a process based on trial and error . A slow but sure becoming, in which it
26642-473: 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 . But this sense may include the restriction that such processes have to lead to intelligent behavior to be considered thought. A contrast sometimes found in the academic literature is that between thinking and feeling . In this context, thinking
26815-509: 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
26988-401: The truth of the conclusion if the premises are true. 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. Induction
27161-413: The type in question. There are various theories concerning how concepts and concept possession are to be understood. The use of metaphor may aid in the processes of concept formation. 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
27334-428: The unconscious as a result of traumatic experiences during childhood and that attempts to integrate them into the conscious perception of the ego triggers resistance . These and other defense mechanisms ‘want’ to maintain the repression – not least with the means of enigma, censorship, internalised fear of punishment or mother-love withdrawal – while the affected instincts resist. All in all, an inner war rages between
27507-553: The unconscious conscious in order to relieve the pressure and the apparently resulting symptoms. This method would later on be left aside by Freud, giving free association a bigger role. In On Narcissism (1914), Freud turned his attention to the titular subject of narcissism . Freud characterized the difference between energy directed at the self versus energy directed at others using a system known as cathexis . By 1917, in " Mourning and Melancholia ", he suggested that certain depressions were caused by turning guilt-ridden anger on
27680-420: The urging of the id and the realities of the external world; it thus operates on the 'reality principle'. The super-ego is held to be the part of the ego in which self-observation, self-criticism and other reflective and judgmental faculties develop. The ego and the super-ego are both partly conscious and partly unconscious. In the late 20th century, neuropsychoanalysis was introduced. The aim of this new field
27853-399: The way in which each generation educates the next to adopt the rules of coexistence known as morality. See also The Future of an Illusion .) In the mid-1890s, he was still upholding his hypothesis of sexual abuse. In this context, he reported on fantasies of several patients, which on the one hand would point to memories of scenes of infantile masturbation stored in the unconscious, while
28026-406: The women around, cause of the taboo of incest . This initiates - starting from the id - anger that can grow into a deadly urge for revenge against the father. Impulses that the little boy cannot act out (not least due to the child's deep dependence on his parents love) and therefore are repressed into unconscious. Symptomatically, this inner situation manifests itself as a feeling of inferiority, even
28199-416: The work of Heidegger , Piaget , Vygotsky , Merleau-Ponty and the pragmatist John Dewey . 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
28372-554: The young women. She herself sometimes liked to jokingly rename her talking cure as chimney sweeping (an association about the fairy tale through which place the stork brings a baby into house) – or in Lacan's words: "The more Anna provided signifers , the more she chattered on, the better it went." Around the same time, Freud had started to develop a neurological hypothesis about mental phenomena such as memory, but soon abandoned this attempt and left it unpublished. Insights into
28545-488: The ‘id’); and the presumably by aducation initiated emergence of a psychopathological mechanism, whose ability consists in being able to hide impulses of this kind from one's own consciousness. Short after he assumed that the same findings would have some evidence for a kind of Oedipal desires. In the tragedy Oedipus , to which Freud refers, there occurs no sexual exploitation of a child by its parents or other adults. Sophocles' poetic treatment of this ancient Greek myth
28718-403: Was able to publish The Interpretation of Dreams . This, for him, was the most important of his writings, as it formulated the realisation that every dream contains a symbolically disguised message that can be decoded with help of the dreamer's free associations . The purpose of every dream is therefore to inform the dreamer about his complex inner situation: in essence, a conflict arising from
28891-404: Was developed in order to clarify the causes of disorders and to restore mental health by enabling the ego to become aware of the id's needs that have been repressed into the unconscious and to find realistic ways of satisfying and/or controlling them. Freud summarised this goal of his therapy in the demand "Where id was, ego shall became", equating the libido as driving energy of innate needs with
29064-409: 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
29237-628: Was held in Weimar in 1911. The London Psychoanalytical Society was founded in 1913 by Ernest Jones . In the 1950s, psychoanalysis was the main modality of psychotherapy . Behavioural models of psychotherapy started to assume a more central role in psychotherapy in the 1960s. Aaron T. Beck , a psychiatrist trained in a psychoanalytic tradition, set out to test the psychoanalytic models of depression empirically and found that conscious ruminations of loss and personal failing were correlated with depression. He suggested that distorted and biased beliefs were
29410-479: Was no less well acquainted with the energetic- economic aspect of evolution and psychic processes (s. def. of the three metapsychological vectors ) than with the trinity of Greek philosophy, especially Plato's transcendent unity of truth : that it expresses the good and the beauty in equal measure, anchored in the proportions of golden ratio. Freud's worldview, with dream interpretation as the royal way into unconscious , wasn't conceived as an source of income ( money
29583-684: Was presented in Studies on Hysteria (1895). Co-authored with his mentor Josef Breuer , this is generally seen as the birth of psychoanalysis. The work based on Freud's and Breuer's partly joint treatment of Bertha Pappenheim , referred to in the case studies by the pseudonym Anna O . . Berta herself had dubbed the treatment talking cure . Breuer, a distinguished physician, was astonished but remained unspecific; while Freud formulated his hypothesis that Anna's hystera seemed to be caused by distressing but unconscious experiences related to sexuality, basing his assumption on corresponding associations made by
29756-430: Was to bridge the gap between psychoanalytic concepts and neuroscientific findings. Solms theorizes that for every cognition based action, there is a neurological reason behind it. According to Daniela Mosri, nueropsychoanalysis was coined by Solms and is a continuation of the original model proposed by Freud in 1895. Neuropsychoanalysis is an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on how neurobiological mechanisms imfluence
29929-510: Was trained psychoanalytically but was concerned about some properties of psychoanalysis; he was troubled by the dogmatism of psychoanalysis at the time, its arcane terminology, the lack of attention to environment in child behaviour, and the concepts derived from talking therapy to child behaviour. In response, he developed an alternative conceptualization of child behaviour based on principles on ethology . Bowlby's theory of attachment rejects Freud's model of psychosexual development based on
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