Thought

Serap Durmuş Öztürk, Karadeniz Technical University, Turkiye
serapdurmus@ktu.edu.tr

Thought is the act or process of thinking; cogitation. A product of thinking; idea; notion. Opinion is a thought or belief about something or someone. The thought, on the other hand, is an idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind. Questions concerning the nature of thought are as old as history itself. Thinking is a material process that fuels scientific investigation into the nature of thought. Thought is so often based on analogy and metaphor—mind invokes one of these subroutines to understand a new context. Theoretical physicist David Bohm (ix) says that the role of thought and knowledge at every level of human affairs, from our private reflections on personal identity to our collective efforts to fashion a tolerable civilisation, leave behind a sediment of ‘common sense’; this is the document of its historical effectiveness. Common sense is not rigid and immobile but is continually transforming itself, enriching itself with scientific ideas and with philosophical opinions which have entered ordinary life.

To begin with, thought is not fresh, direct perception. It is literally that which has been ‘thought’ –the past, carried forward into the present. Thought is also inclusive of feelings, in the form of latent emotional experiences. Not only negative, painful emotions are folded into thought, but pleasurable ones as well. The mind is an evolved computer program, and the contents of the messages vary from personal thoughts to public statements. Public opinion can provide useful perspectives on an influential work of political thought. Lippmann wrote that ‘the ideal of democracy’ involved a particular mode of opinion formation: ‘self-conscious people forming judgements on weight of evidence, and initiating from their own thoughts.’. He thought improving public opinion meant elevating chat from gossip to debate, so that it governed even better as a general political force.

Keywords: cognitive process, public opinion, philosophical inquiry

Related Entries: Belief, Public Opinion

References:
Baum, E. B. (2004). What is thought?. The MIT Press.
Bohm, D. (1994). Thought as a system (pp. ix-xv). Routledge.
Harman, G. (1977). Thought. Princeton University Press.
Lippmann, W. (1998). Public opinion. Transaction Publishers.
Morris, W. (1969). The American heritage dictionary of the English language. Houghton Mifflin.