Thought

Thought as a substantive noun means a concept or judgment, on the one hand, or the act of thinking, on the other. The activity is associated with understanding, meaning, creativity, reasoning and learning or cognition. It can also mean the body of published thoughts of a particular person, as in "Plato's thought."

The reader is directed to the articles on the above topics, but on this page it would be appropriate to explore the relationship between so-called objects of thought, meaning concepts or judgments, and the process of thinking. The German philosopher Edmund Husserl is famous for saying (though not the first to say it) that conscious thinking is intentional, that is, it has an "aboutness." Philosophers sometimes describe the "objects" of thinking not as external objects but as internal stand-ins. If, for example, Socrates is thinking about courage, we often say that he is talking about a concept or idea--which is something mental, or something abstract--rather than a particular characteristic of a particular person. In the same way, Socrates might "entertain a thought" that he is mortal, and while we might say that Socrates is thinking about the fact that he is mortal, sometimes we say that what he is thinking about is, again, something abstract or mental--a proposition.

The "aboutness" or intentionality of thinking has led to considerable confusion and is associated with both some of the deepest problems in three different branches of philosophy: metaphysics (the problem of universals), philosophy of language (the meaning of meaning), and philosophy of mind (the nature and objects of consciousness). It is apt that the concept of thought is, indeed, so thought-provoking.