Thought and Fundamentals of Thinking

Thought

        Logic is a science and art of correct thinking. Thus, in studying Logic, it is important to be able to know first what is thinking.

When we think, we always think about something, and when we think about something, we have what we call thought. But what is thought and how do we acquire it?

        Our preliminary observation would show that thought is always something that our mind has. If fact, it is impossible to think that thought exists without a mind that thinks. So, we can say that thought is within us. However, if we scrutinize much further, we would see that even if thought is within us, it is not us. If I see a chair and then, because I become conscious about it, I acquire a thought of “chair” (chair-thought), two things are not me: one, the chair that I see, the other, my chair-thought. I am different from my chair-thought because myself is the one who thinks while my chair-thought is the one that is thought of[1]. Therefore, we observe that thought has its own existence in our mind whose identity or essence is independent of our own identity, although its being present in our mind is entirely dependent upon our thinking of them.

                This concept is important because it justifies why Logic is a science, an objective study of correct thinking. Accordingly, the principles and laws of correct thinking that we would discover throughout the course are not just products of flimsy imaginations of people most of whom lived hundreds and thousands of years ago; its applicability is universal. No matter what place or time, or who people are, the laws and principles set by Logic on correct thinking still maintains its objectivity and universality.       

                Another obvious observation about thinking is that among the living beings in this world, only humans are capable of producing thought. This, however, need an explanation.

There are people who believe that our only cognitive difference from animals is the complex structure of our brain. In fact, there are animals that, even if their brains are structurally inferior to ours, show cognitive skills like solving mathematical, and practical problems (like how to get a food), and having memories. This is possible since some animals are also intelligent beings[2]. But to think that they, too, have thought is another story. Our response to this problem is absolute: animals do not have thoughts. We’ll try to show it why.

Animals, as we generally agree, perceive things. They see, feel, smell, taste, and hear.

Nevertheless, perception is still different from knowledge. On one hand, perception necessarily requires the activity of senses, so that an organism cannot be said to perceive anything unless a stimulus passes through its senses. Knowledge, on the other hand, requires more than perception; it requires affirmation, something that only we, humans, are capable of. We do not only receive stimulus through our senses, but we also affirm what it is that we perceive – we affirm that it is, that it is something.

For example, some animals may perceive a brown, sweet-smelling, delicious, and big something but they could never affirm that it is, that it is a “cake”. Intelligent apes, for another example, may know how to perform arithmetic operations like addition or subtraction; they may know that one added by one is two but they do not know what it is that they add. Since they do not know what they perceive, they cannot have any idea or thought about it.

But this is not true of us. We know things because we affirm them. And why are we capable of affirmation? The answer is because, unlike animals, we have intellect. Intellect is the faculty which gives us the ability to affirm what we perceive and so grasp its whatness, its being a something.

                Notice that one element in production of thought is affirmation. This shall be our point of departure as we embark on showing how we, as thinking beings, are able to produce thoughts or ideas. The following notes will give us a sketch                on this plain.

From this point onward, we shall be using the term concept as equivalent to ideas. A little farther, we shall be using the terms concept and term univocally.

Fundamentals of Thinking

A.      Simple Apprehension

-          also known as affirmation, is the operation by which we grasp the whatness of something

-          making a thing present in and to our minds without telling something about it

-          It also means an act of being conscious about something.

-          Simple apprehension, as an act or operation, requires something to act upon just as consciousness requires something to be conscious about. This something is called object of simple apprehension. When I become conscious of something, this something then is the object of my consciousness. But how am I able to be conscious of the object of my consciousness?

B.      Concept

-          To make this object of simple apprehension present into our minds requires a sign.

-          A sign is anything that points us to something. For example, a red traffic light is a sign of “stop”, a cross is a sign of Christianity, two thumbs up is a sign of approval or congratulations, etc.

-          Unlike other signs, this sign that we are pertaining to does not point us to something else but to itself – it points itself.

-          The sign of the cross, for a contrary example, does not point itself because it points something else, namely Christianity, but “chair” (or chair-thought as we called it previously) points itself and not something else.

-          This sign of the object of simple apprehension is called concept (or thought as we called it previously).

-          E.g. Just as there is a chair that exists in reality, so there is also a “chair” that is present in our mind. The “chair” that is present in our mind (chair-thought) is an example of a concept, a sign that points to itself.

C.      Term

-          Term is also a sign, but it does not point to itself but to something else.

-          For example, when you see a word FREEDOM written with a charcoal on a wall of an abandoned building, you would immediately realize that this word does not point to itself as merely a word. In fact, it is obviously absurd to answer the question “What is that which is written on the wall?” by saying “It is a word”. This is because that which is written on the wall does not point to itself but to something else, namely a thought or an idea. The word composed of seven letters F.R.E.E.D.O.M. points us to an idea or thought which is freedom.

-          Just a concept is a sign of an object of simple apprehension, so is term the sign of a concept.

-          Differentiating concept and term is a little bit confusing. Let us, then, put it is this way: Suppose there is a Filipino and an American in a particular area and both of them only speak their own language. Then, they saw a chair. The Filipino says it is an “Upuan” while the American says it is a “Chair”. The terms “Upuan” and “Chair” are two terms but they only point one specific concept, namely upuan or chair.

One must remember, however, that in the real order, the object of simple apprehension, the concept, and the term is one thing, not three. We showed here their distinctions so that we may understand the structure through which we produce thoughts.

One who studies Logic does not need to master this concept. Nevertheless, since we shall deal with the rules that govern the use of concepts and terms later on, it is very important to know what, in the first place, is concept and term.

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[1] This case is different, however, when my thought is myself. In this kind of thought, the thought and the one who thinks is one.

[2] Intelligence and intellect, as we will show later, are two different concepts. Human beings and some animals have intelligence, so do computers, but only human beings have intellect.