Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Thinking: Thinking is a cognitive process that involves mental activities such as reasoning, problem solving, decision making, imagination and conceptualization. These operations enable individuals to process information, make sense of their experiences and interact with the world around them.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Wilfrid Sellars on Thinking - Dictionary of Arguments

I XXIX
Thinking/Perceiving: Sellars' everyday theory: modelled after the example of words and phrases of colloquial language, but no speaking with an inner tongue.
>Everyday language
, >Theory/Sellars, >Models/Sellars.
I 80
To each of us belongs a stream of episodes that are not direct experiences themselves and to which we have privileged, but by no means immutable or infallible access.
>Privileged access. They can occur without open language behavior.
The word ideas are not thinking itself. Nor is the open speech behavior thought itself. We do not need to have word ideas, neither must we have an idea at all if we know what we think. It is wrong to construct the privileged access according to the model of perception.
>Words/Sellars.
I 83
Sellars thesis: mentalistic discourse (thoughts) ascribable to semantic speech. (Sellars pro modified Rylean explanation: thoughts are a short form for hypothetical and mixed categorical-hypothetical statements about verbal or non-verbal behavior).
Tradition: thoughts without word ideas are possible.
>Imagination, >Language and thought.
Sellars: Categories of intentionality are semantical.
>Intentionality.
I 94
Thinking: the terms belonging to thinking are theoretical terms.
>Theoretical terms.
I 94
Thoughts are theoretical, not empirical, they cannot be defined in terms of an observation language. Their "purity" is not a metaphysical, but so to say, a methodological purity.
The ability to have thoughts, is formed in the course of the acquisition of public language. Only after the public language is firmly established, the inner speech can ever occur.
Theoretical episodes (thoughts) are not direct experiences.
I 95
The terms belonging to thinking are theoretical terms, but their status is clarified by the opposition between theoretical and non-theoretical speech.
>Theoretical language, >Observation language.
Only a small step to using the language to describe oneself: if someone says who is watching us "Dick thinks 'p'" then Dick can say, "I think p".

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Sellars I
Wilfrid Sellars
The Myth of the Given: Three Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, University of London 1956 in: H. Feigl/M. Scriven (eds.) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1956
German Edition:
Der Empirismus und die Philosophie des Geistes Paderborn 1999

Sellars II
Wilfred Sellars
Science, Perception, and Reality, London 1963
In
Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk, Frankfurt/M. 1977


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