Thought

In their most common sense, thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that occur independently of direct sensory stimulation. Core forms include judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. Other processes, such as entertaining an idea, memory, or imagination, are also frequently considered types of thought. Unlike perception, these activities can occur without immediate input from the sensory organs. In a broader sense, any mental event—including perception and unconscious processes—may be described as a form of thought. The term can also denote not the process itself, but the resulting mental states or systems of ideas.

A variety of theories attempt to explain the nature of thinking. Platonism holds that thought involves discerning eternal forms and their interrelations, distinguishing these pure entities from their imperfect sensory imitations. Aristotelianism interprets thinking as instantiating the universal essence of an object within the mind, derived from sense experience rather than a changeless realm. Conceptualism, closely related to Aristotelianism, identifies thinking with the mental evocation of concepts. Inner speech theories suggest that thought takes the form of silent verbal expression, sometimes in a natural language and sometimes in a specialized "mental language," or Mentalese, as proposed by the language of thought hypothesis. Associationism views thought as the succession of ideas governed by laws of association, while behaviorism reduces thinking to behavioral dispositions that generate intelligent actions in response to stimuli. More recently, computationalism compares thought to information processing, storage, and transmission in computers.

Different types of thinking are recognized in philosophy and psychology. Judgement involves affirming or denying a proposition; reasoning draws conclusions from premises or evidence. Both depend on concepts acquired through concept formation. Problem solving aims at achieving specific goals by overcoming obstacles, while deliberation evaluates possible courses of action before selecting one. Episodic memory and imagination internally represent objects or events, either as faithful reproductions or novel rearrangements. Unconscious thought refers to mental activity that occurs without conscious awareness and is sometimes invoked to explain solutions reached without deliberate effort.

The study of thought spans many disciplines. Phenomenology examines the subjective experience of thinking, while metaphysics addresses how mental processes relate to matter in a naturalistic framework. Cognitive psychology treats thought as information processing, whereas developmental psychology explores its growth from infancy to adulthood. Psychoanalysis emphasizes unconscious processes, and fields such as linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, biology, and sociology also investigate different aspects of thought. Related concepts include the classical laws of thought (identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle), counterfactual thinking (imagining alternatives to reality), thought experiments (testing theories through hypothetical scenarios), critical thinking (reflective evaluation of beliefs and actions), and positive thinking (focusing on beneficial aspects of situations, often linked to optimism). Provided by Wikipedia