Think E-Book

Svend Brinkmann

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 206

Beschreibung

A defining feature of being human is our ability to think. We refer to ourselves, after all, as Homo sapiens. But in a world where experiencing and achieving as much as possible is the number one preoccupation, there is little room for reflection. Technology is also making everything easier, eroding the need for us to think at all.

Of course deep, critical thinking can be difficult, sometimes painful, and it takes time. But it is fundamental to our well-being. In this new book, bestselling philosopher and psychologist Svend Brinkmann argues for a return to the thoughtful life, where we learn to think well, to think deeply, to lose ourselves in reverie and tune in to our inner voice. By spending time in our thoughts and letting them wander freely, we will discover that thinking is one of the most enriching things we can do in life – and one of the most human, too.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Why practise something you already know how to do?

The thinking human

What does thinking mean?

Notes

1 What do you think?

What does the dictionary say?

Forms of thinking

Thinking in practice

Notes

2 Why has it become difficult to think?

An age without thought

Virtues of thinking

The humanities as meaningful thinking

How to think critically

Notes

3 Happiness is a thoughtful life

Thoughtful immersion

Happy amateurs

Notes

4 Thinking as formation

Live less, think more

Rising up to humanity

To think is to live

Back to formation: Individuals without individualism

Notes

5 Where does thinking come from?

The thinking life and the emotional life

Thinking as a higher mental function

The natural history of thinking

Notes

6 How to think

Think with the world

Think with your body

Think while moving

Think with books

Think with children

Think in conversation

Think with history

Notes

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Begin Reading

End User License Agreement

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Think

In Defence of a Thoughtful Life

Svend Brinkmann

Translated by Tam McTurk

polity

Originally published in Danish as Tænk © Svend Brinkmann & Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2022. Published by agreement with Gyldendal Group Agency.

This English edition © Polity Press, 2024

Translated by Tam McTurk

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance given by the Danish Arts Foundation towards the translation of this book.

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5960-2

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023934524

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

Introduction

Some years ago, I wrote a review of the excellent book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics (there is no prize for psychology).1 As the title suggests, the book is about how human thought operates via two systems: a fast one, which is intuitive and usually quite effective, but also has an inbuilt tendency to make mistakes; and a slow one that is more mentally demanding but often more reliable. In my review, I cited one of Kahneman’s well-known examples, which I have reproduced below. When you read it, try to blurt out your answer to the simple sum automatically – and then wait for a minute or two before working it out systematically.

A bat and ball cost $1.10.The bat costs one dollar more than the ball.How much does the ball cost?

Easy enough, you might think. Most people’s quick-fire intuitive answer is 10 cents. Indeed, that may be how it looks at first glance, but think a little deeper and longer and you’ll realise it’s wrong. If the ball costs 10 cents and the bat costs a dollar more than the ball, the bat must cost $1.10, which takes the total cost above the amount stipulated in the original premise. The correct answer must be that the ball costs 5 cents (and the bat $1.05). Elementary arithmetic, perhaps, but not immediately obvious to the fast thinker – even for gifted adults like you, the reader. As the example shows, following your intuition or gut feeling isn’t always the best way to go. For some questions and problems, it’s better to slow down. The first thing that springs to mind isn’t always right, no matter how many people claim otherwise, including the authors of self-help books and management manuals.

I cite this example not just because it is an exemplary illustration of one of the kinds of cognitive errors that Kahneman has spent a long career studying, but also because, after reading my review, an angry woman – a complete stranger – called me about it. She sounded rational enough and wanted to take me to task for what she considered a self-evident mistake. It was clear to all and sundry that the ball cost 10 cents! She sounded almost embarrassed on my behalf because I didn’t get it. I tried to be patient and talk her through the sum, but she stood firm. (I may have written a book about standing firm, but this wasn’t really what I had in mind!)

My critic passionately explained why I was wrong. Getting me to think straight obviously meant a great deal to her. My failure (in her eyes) to grasp the problem bothered her, and she wanted to help. Her concern echoed Kahneman’s desire to help his readers think better and train them to minimise cognitive errors. For most of us, it’s important not only that we and our fellow human beings behave properly – comply with certain moral virtues – but also that we think properly and, in doing so, comply with certain intellectual virtues. It’s important not only to act well but also to think well. Doing so puts us in touch with reality, which helps us learn. It also encourages us to think critically, which allows us to identify those aspects of the world in need of improvement. Good, deep thinking can also be – in my opinion – a source of true joy. Especially when we think for ourselves. The ancient Greek philosophers lauded the joy of thinking, of thoughtfulness, of the contemplative life, and considered it the highest human calling. That is what this book is all about – advocating a thoughtful life.

The difference between Kahneman and the woman on the phone, of course, is that one is right and the other wrong. There is only one correct answer to a sum. All others are wrong. This underlines the fundamental normativity of thinking: that there are more or less correct ways to deploy our capacity to think. There are, quite simply, norms for good and valid thinking, and we would do well to learn them. One theme of this book is that learning to think is part of the process known as formation (Bildung, as the Germans call it) – learning to be a fully rounded thinking person – which is described in detail later in the book. Thinking is fundamental to living a good life.

To the best of our knowledge, humans are the only creatures on the planet capable of thinking in the true sense of the word. All sorts of animals intuitively calculate risk (a hyena tempted to steal from a lion weighs up the risk of finding themselves on the menu), but only humans make actual calculations, because only we have access to the world of numbers and mathematical symbols. Humans are also the only creatures capable of thinking about the meaning of life, the nature of a just society or the potential existence of a deity. We can do these things because we possess the ability to think reflectively – to think about how we think – and because we have language, which the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called ‘the vehicle of thought’.2 We need language and its concepts in order to think about the past, the future, good, evil, or other abstract matters, including thinking itself.

However, even though thinking is normative – that is, it can be right and wrong – and even though some of its norms appear objective (those of logic, for example), it’s still important that we learn to think for ourselves. The rounded individual understands the history and communities of which they are a part, and can think independently. They have developed their own voice, which makes them capable of forming their own opinions about issues and questions, but when doing so they always take into account other people and the world around them. Indeed, this is the basic idea of humanism: that you must learn to think for yourself. To think well. To use your reason. And to resist anything that threatens your ability to do so. But how do we manage that as products of our circumstances? How can we think slowly, deeply and in a rounded manner in a world driven by utility value, power and haste? These are the type of questions addressed in this book. I will argue that thinking, in the true sense of the word, is one of the most important things you can do in life – and one of the most human things, too. However, I will also assert that the nature of our modern world is not conducive to thoughtfulness, and that this means there is every reason for us to re-learn how to think well and deeply.

Why practise something you already know how to do?

We live in strange times. Although most of us are perfectly capable of using our legs to go for a walk, books about how to walk and hike are published all the time. The majority of us manage to fall asleep most nights, yet a torrent of literature is churned out about how to sleep better. And even though many people know what it feels like to fall into a reverie and just be there in the moment, bookshop shelves are bulging with guides to meditation and mindfulness, which treat the phenomenon as a technique to be taught. Humans really are uniquely capable of making their own bodies and minds the object of training, discipline and improvement. We are, as the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk puts it, creatures condemned to practise even the most simple and uncomplicated of things.

It is easy to marvel and poke fun at this ‘technification’ of the simple – I should know, and readily admit that I have been guilty of doing just that. Nevertheless, I intend to stick my neck out in this book and add yet another area to the list of phenomena that we all already know about and yet, I maintain, a lot of us would do well to practise: thinking.

But what is thinking? It is clearly more than just solving mathematical problems, as in Kahneman’s example. Can we arrive at a tentative understanding of the phenomenon even at this early stage in the book?

Before I introduce definitions and theories about thinking, let me hark back to some of the most delightful moments I can remember, moments that revolved around precisely that – thinking. As a child, I would spend hours lying on the carpet, basking in the spring sun as it flooded in through our big living room windows, just letting my mind wander. In my head, I told myself stories and dreamt of being an explorer. Sometimes, an atlas would help kickstart my imagination. This was thinking as joyful daydreaming. In the winter, this form of reverie would take place in front of the wood-burning stove, and it’s surely no coincidence that I often fell into thought as the sun or the wood burner warmed my body. Often, my thinking was accompanied by distinct physical sensations. For example, I would feel a bit faint or empty when I pondered whether the universe is infinite. Neither finiteness nor infinity is comprehensible, yet the question is worth thinking about. As I walked the few miles to school, I often conducted long conversations with myself which – unlike my physical being – had no particular destination. It was probably the very absence of ulterior goals that made the thinking so edifying. It was thinking just for the sake of thinking. I also remember the embarrassment of occasionally being caught talking to myself as I ambled along, lost in thought. These days, I know there was nothing to be ashamed of – I was just deeply immersed in my thoughts.

As an adult, I find it more difficult to lose myself in thought like that, but it still happens sometimes when I’m out for a run or a bike ride. Often, it results in useful ideas that I write down when I get home. But I can’t just make this happen whenever I feel like it. Thinking has a life of its own. You can’t do much more than listen to your thoughts. They are, of course, my thoughts – I think them myself – and yet I don’t really know where they come from (well, from the brain, of course, but not just from there, as we will see later). In a way, it’s as much the thinking that is thinking through me as it is me who is doing the thinking. It’s almost like being a spectator to the world of ideas, which plays out inside you – or even outside you, for example if you write thoughts down or discuss them with others. I don’t have control over what pops up once I start thinking, but I can listen to the flow, try to keep up and take part in the dialogue with myself. In ancient philosophy, Socrates, in particular, was known for long bouts of reverie, when what he called his daimon – his inner voice – spoke to him through his thoughts. Fortunately, the world-famous wise man is not the only one with such a daimon. We all have one. Children are especially good at giving free rein to theirs. In fact, the ancient Greek concept of the good life, eudaimonia, stems from eudaimon, which literally means ‘good daimon’.

My thesis in this book is that more thinking would enrich our lives. We ought to listen more to our daimon. In our busy, modern existence, there’s often no time for forethought, consideration and afterthought – all of which depend, in many ways, on our daimon, which makes itself heard when we allow ourselves the time to dwell a little on our thoughts, to be conscientious and think critically. Spending time with your thoughts, letting them wander freely with no particular destination, marvelling at the world, immersing yourself in life’s mysteries, and insisting on time for both anticipation and reflection are all aspects of what I call thoughtfulness. If you miss thinking as much as I do, you’ll be glad to hear that you can reawaken your daimon. That’s the aim of this book.

The thinking human

It’s difficult to come up with a more fundamental human phenomenon than the capacity to think. Our biological species is even called homo sapiens – Latin for ‘wise man’ or ‘thinking human’. The entire tradition of European philosophy has stressed the importance of rational thinking. In ancient Greece, Aristotle defined human beings as zoon logikon, the rational animal. During the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant stressed that the capacity for rationality is fundamental to human dignity and to being human. Animals are different. They can’t relate to themselves, use language or assume responsibilities, all of which are traits linked to the ability to think. Kant is famous for (among other things) his 1784 description of enlightenment as ‘man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage’. He defined nonage as ‘the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance’. In other words, nonage is self-inflicted when it stems not from any lack of intellect but from a lack of decisiveness and the courage to deploy the ability to think. Hence Kant’s Enlightenment slogan Sapere aude! (‘have the courage to use your own reason’). Think for yourself, we might also say. Listen to your daimon. Talk with it and with other people.

The point is that we can all think for ourselves if we so wish, but deciding to do so requires courage. ‘Self-imposed nonage’ is often easier. The philosopher Hannah Arendt argued that this was what the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann did as part of the apparatus that orchestrated the Holocaust – the systematic extermination of the Jewish people – and the mass murder of others who thought differently from the regime. Arendt concluded that Eichmann’s fundamental defect was his inability to think. There is always a danger that unthinking people will act in an evil manner. We will return to that.

What does thinking mean?

But what does it actually mean to think? What forms does it take? How do you learn to do it? And how easy or difficult is it to think for yourself these days?

These are some of the questions this book attempts to answer. In doing so, I draw on psychology – especially the cognitive strand that focuses on how we think and understand – but also philosophy, because my primary interest is in what might be called the existential dimensions of thinking. The idea is that thinking isn’t just a matter of solving intellectual problems, like Kahneman’s tricky sum. It can also be a way of existing in the world – living a contemplative life.

Social scientists and philosophers have long identified a lack of thinking in contemporary society. More than seventy years ago, the existential philosopher and cultural critic Martin Heidegger declared that ‘What is most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.’3 He meant it not just as a critique of his own age, but as a more general analysis of the tendency to avoid thinking that had characterised more or less the whole of Western cultural history. According to Heidegger, we have simply forgotten to think, in the sense of thinking for its own sake. Since Heidegger, we have become even better at using science and technology to solve myriad problems. This calls for a great deal of cognitive activity, of course, which we seek to stimulate in kindergartens, schools, and in further and higher education. As a society, we like to focus on utilitarian thinking – on ‘what works’, effectiveness and evidence, and ‘the biggest bang for our buck’. It is, of course, legitimate to think instrumentally in this way. But what if, in doing so, we forget the intrinsic value of letting our thoughts wander, and of allowing them to lead us to unforeseen destinations? There is much to be gained by spending time thinking thoughts that are not of any immediate use – thoughts about life, the universe and what makes a society just. We can do this on our own or as part of dynamic conversations with others. It is often in situations like these that we think critically and open our minds to the possibility that things could be different. Who decided the world should be as it is? Could it be better?

I call this form of thinking – which has no ulterior motive, making it both the finest and least practical form – thoughtfulness. This is what I advocate in this book. It is the form of thinking closest to meaningfulness. Given the burgeoning popularity of mindfulness in recent decades, I hope thoughtfulness will be just as popular one day. Mindfulness means ‘being present in the here and now and accepting what is’,4 and it builds on the meditative traditions of the Far East. Studies of the therapeutic effects of mindfulness indicate promising outcomes in the treatment of stress, anxiety and depression. Mindfulness is about being present, about accepting the world and the moment as we find them. The range of courses and books available suggests a demand for it. On the other side of the coin, despite it being part of philosophical practice in the West since at least Socrates, nobody runs courses in thoughtfulness.

Inspired by popular mindfulness books, I recommend various exercises in thoughtfulness. Hopefully, these will help rekindle the joy of thinking in a busy world full of distractions. The goal is not to foster mere acceptance of the world, but to encourage critical thinking and reflection. The exercises stem from the philosophical tradition of thought experiments, which call for a combination of logic, reason and imagination. Different hypothetical scenarios are posited in order to evaluate the nature of knowledge, justice and good deeds. Philosophers do not, of course, conduct real experiments in the empirical world, but their thought experiments help to guide us all towards a more thoughtful, critical and imaginative life. But to get there, we have to think slowly, deeply and for ourselves. Consider, for example, the following classic thought experiment.

Thought experiment 1: Ring of Gyges

Plato’s book The Republic introduces ‘the Ring of Gyges’, one of the first thought experiments. It’s a good place to start. Plato’s brother, Glaucon, formulates it as a kind of challenge to Socrates during a discussion about who is happier, the just or the unjust person. Socrates believes the just person is happier, based on his observation that it is worse to do bad than to suffer badly. You cannot be happy if you are unjust, because being unjust harms not only your soul, but that of at least one other. At this point, Glaucon introduces the story of the Ring of Gyges, which would undoubtedly have been well known to his listeners. King Gyges had a ring that could make the wearer invisible. (NB: The important aspect of the thought experiment is not how realistic it is, but that it stimulates a discussion about what you would do if you could be invisible – and, indirectly, whether the just or unjust individual is happier.)

Glaucon posits the following:

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.5