Thought: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Most of these little intro books are well-written opening salvos into dense topics; Thought is no different. If the work spawns a chaining sequence of thought for me, then I view it as a success and a prized collection in my library; Thought accomplishes this.If you're religious you should especially read this, to help you dislodge your self from whatever virus you've had installed in your brain.

a good introduction

These books "Very Short Introductions" give me all the info I want. I not trying to be an expert, just satisfying my curiosities without going over my head. Almost any topic you could think of presented very well. With recommendations for further reading if you're still thirsty.

The book was a mix of rather interesting topics and rather boring topics. "Thought" turns out to be a very nebulous term, and the book covers everything from the science behind thoughts, to the philosophical model of how thoughts might work. Often, the science is rather lacking because, as the author explains, science knows remarkably little about thought. This leaves us with multiple chapters that are just not that interesting, as topics drift from neuroscience to Descartes thoughts on thought.The philosophy, however, was just not interesting to me. It seemed like a lot of hand waving, a lot of "maybes", and at the end of the day, I don't feel like I learned very much from those sections of the book.Unfortunately, the Further Reading section, often a strong point of Very Short Introductions, wasn't that useful either, citing mostly studies rather than other books about the topic.I would give this book two stars, but the kindle edition was only $5, and I might have had my expectations set unreasonably high by amazon's description of the book, hence three stars.

Covers the topics that I was interested in reading about.This books appears to be an original work by the author, although there may beother similar titles.

This is an excellent short introduction to a complex subject, making me impatient for the author's 2014 book on the philosophy of mind. Main issues are well presented, with sophistication. Thus, the author recognizes the biases of experimental psychology resulting from too much reliance on American undergraduates as test subjects (p. 63), though he fails to apply this skepticism to the fashionable "2 systems" of reasoning dichotomy (p. 15), ignoring the important naturalistic decision making studies pioneered by Gary Klein and the impacts of professionalism on thought. The final chapter on "The Limits of Thought," however short, adds to the merits of the book by taking up seriously the likelihood of "cognitive closure" (p.103). However there are a number of serious omissions. It remains unclear whether "thought" has to be explicit, or at least accessible to consciousness, or whether it includes essential sub-conscious processes. Depth-psychology is ignored. Related is lack of possibly significant distinctions between "thought," "pondering," "contemplation," "meditation" and "daydreaming." And creativity is not mentioned, though it is a critical modality of thought, combining subconscious incubation, deliberate mental search, and "leaps" of insight or production.Presentation of "logic and probability theory" (the latter being in fact a branch of logic, namely modal logic) as the "best" of unbounded rationality (p. 18) is very narrow, ignoring many features of high-quality reasoning, such as field perspectives and innovativeness. This may well be related with the apparent trust of the author in the objectivity of morality (p. 100), which oversimplified "moral reasoning" (as in deontological logic) at the much too high cost of ignoring most moral philosophy and nearly all anthropology.The book importantly takes up issues of cultural differences in thinking (but not in morality) (chapter 5), but ignores not less important individual and also gender differences.Disturbing is the statement on lack of guidelines for generating required thoughts on the test question "why democracies tend not to wage war against other democracies" (pp. 93-4). Not only does this contradict suggestions by the author on upgrading doxastic voluntarism (pp. 96-7), but many not-too-demanding ways to stimulating thinking on the question can be suggested, such as reformulating perspectives by considering first "why are wars waged."All these critical comments do not detract from the overall high quality of the book, which is highly recommended as an introductory and in some respect also advanced text on thought.Professor Yehezkel DrorThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Received the book in good condition

The Very Short Introductions are a major educational resource. There are presently nearly 700 small books covering a very wide range of subjects. Although short, the Introductions are substantial in content. Everyone would benefit from reading these books to broaden their knowledge and understanding in diverse areas of life. Perseverance with some subjects may be required but be prepared to be surprised, enlightened and enriched.

Very interesting as per usual for books of the VSI series. The final two chapters of this one in particular are worth a reread

Excellent book. Clear, no jargon, properly explained.

This is an excellent short introduction to a complex subject, making me impatient for the author's 2014 book on the philosophy of mind. Main issues are well presented, with sophistication. Thus, the author recognizes the biases of experimental psychology resulting from too much reliance on American undergraduates as test subjects (p. 63), though he fails to apply this skepticism to the fashionable "2 systems" of reasoning dichotomy (p. 15), ignoring the important naturalistic decision making studies pioneered by Gary Klein and the impacts of professionalism on thought. The final chapter on "The Limits of Thought," however short, adds to the merits of the book by taking up seriously the likelihood of "cognitive closure" (p.103). However there are a number of serious omissions. It remains unclear whether "thought" has to be explicit, or at least accessible to consciousness, or whether it includes essential sub-conscious processes. Depth-psychology is ignored. Related is lack of possibly significant distinctions between "thought," "pondering," "contemplation," "meditation" and "daydreaming." And creativity is not mentioned, though it is a critical modality of thought, combining subconscious incubation, deliberate mental search, and "leaps" of insight or production.Presentation of "logic and probability theory" (the latter being in fact a branch of logic, namely modal logic) as the "best" of unbounded rationality (p. 18) is very narrow, ignoring many features of high-quality reasoning, such as field perspectives and innovativeness. This may well be related with the apparent trust of the author in the objectivity of morality (p. 100), which oversimplified "moral reasoning" (as in deontological logic) at the much too high cost of ignoring most moral philosophy and nearly all anthropology.The book importantly takes up issues of cultural differences in thinking (but not in morality) (chapter 5), but ignores not less important individual and also gender differences.Disturbing is the statement on lack of guidelines for generating required thoughts on the test question "why democracies tend not to wage war against other democracies" (pp. 93-4). Not only does this contradict suggestions by the author on upgrading doxastic voluntarism (pp. 96-7), but many not-too-demanding ways to stimulating thinking on the question can be suggested, such as reformulating perspectives by considering first "why are wars waged."All these critical comments do not detract from the overall high quality of the book, which is highly recommended as an introductory and in some respect also advanced text on thought.Professor Yehezkel DrorThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This book has two distinct parts reflecting the mind body dualism: a first half,much more interesting to me,where thought is metaphysically investigated and a second one where thought -if that was only possible-is brought to material down- to-earth life.By making this exercise of inmixing different category things the author confounds the likemyself nonprofessional reader and depreciates an otherwise very readable book.Francisco