Thinking is preceded by sensations and perceptions, withwhich begins our knowledge of the environment. Thinking expands the boundaries of visible and sensory perception. It also allows us to comprehend the "inner world" of "external" perception by inference.
General characteristic of thinking reveals hismeaning. Thinking appears to us the most generalized and mediated form of mental reflection, which concretizes the connections and relations of cognitive objects. It evolves along with society, the concepts and principles that exist in it.
Types of thinking
Thought operations of different types and levelsfill the human mind. First of all, they differ in different cognitive meaning. For example, completely different thinking operations, with the help of which the problems arisen between a scientist and a small child are solved. Therefore, different levels of thought are different. Separation depends on the possible level of generalization of sensations, the depth of the transition of thought from phenomenon to essence. These levels of thinking are visual thinking in its elementary manifestations, as well as abstract and theoretical.
These types of thinking are carried out on the basis of"Processing" of perceived images into images-representations, which then change, are transformed, generalized, due to which the image-conceptual reflection of the real world arises.
Visual-figurative thinking transforms the visual conditions of mental actions, translating their perceptual content into meanings.
The creative reflection of reality by a person iscreative thinking. The result is an imaginary image that does not exist in a given time interval. Under thinking, one can also understand the creative transformation of remembered representations or objects.
The main types of thinking are, undoubtedly, theoretical and practical. Theoretical is divided into conceptual and figurative, and practical - visual-figurative and visual-effective.
Theoretical conceptual thinking impliessearch for solutions in the mind with the use of ready-made knowledge, which are expressed in concepts, inferences and judgments. This kind of thinking activity does not require an appeal to practical cognition of reality, does not receive empirical facts on its own.
At theoretical figurative thinking the personuses representations and images, not facts, concepts or judgments. Images come from memory or are formed in the perception of reality. This kind of thinking is most characteristic of creative people, for example, writers, artists, sculptors.
Both types of mental processes are mutuallycomplemented and closely related. Theoretical conceptual thinking gives rise to a more abstract and concrete reflection of reality, and figurative - a concrete subjective real perception.
Visual-figurative thinking is differentdirect and obligatory connection of the thought process and the person's perception of reality. This kind of thinking activity is most characteristic of pre-school children and various kinds of leaders, as well as people who carry out practical work.
A feature of visual-efficient thinkingis its process. It is the practical transformative activity that man exercises. Characterizes, basically, a wide mass of production units and workshops.
B.M. Teplov believes that types of thinking differ in their connection with practice.
Thinking and language in philosophy
The connection between language and thinking gives rise to manycontradictions. Initially, it was believed that one can not think without knowing the language, words, that is, the language was perceived only as a "clothing" of thought. For the same reason, language was identified with thinking. But many scientists believe otherwise, citing the example of the work of composers or artists. For them, words are unimportant, only ideas and images dominate, which subsequently acquire real outlines. For example, Miller believes that a person initially forms a plan of his statements or reasoning, perhaps even on an unconscious level. And a little later this plan finds its verbal reflection.
Most likely, the truth is in the middle. Language is closely related to thinking. This does not take away.
