Definition of Thought

Dynamic ability of each person that allows them to build opinions, reflections, criticisms and ideas, as well as dream and imagine, based on research and lived experiences, around the perception of the world that surrounds them and their particular interests. by the Latin verb I will thinkand the suffix -mento, as an action-effect property, as the proper result of the process.

Thought as the foundation of modern subjectivity

In the context of Modernity, the Cartesian conception of the cogito synthesizes the framework of ideas on which the notion of “thought” typical of the time is articulated. In their principles of philosophyRené Descartes (1596-1650) presents the distinction between two types of substance that make up what exists: on the one hand, the res extensive (that is, the corporeal substances), and, on the other, the res cogitans (that is, the thinking substance). While corporeal things perish, the thinking substance is eternal and permanent; therefore, knowledge of the true is only possible through thought. In the Metaphysical Meditationsthe formulation of “Cogito ergo sum” -that is to say, “I think, therefore I am”—, is presented as the first indubitable certainty, once all our knowledge about the world has been questioned. We cannot know if the sense data is misleading; however, there is no doubt that if we are thinking, it is because we exist. This is, then, the first clear and evident knowledge that human beings can access.

From the Cartesian point of view, thought not only includes rational capacity, but also other activities, such as imagination and volitions. This is always accompanied by consciousness, in this sense, the ego rests on the consciousness of the subject about his mental processes, so that the relationship between the constitution of the individual as an “I” and thought is considered fundamental. .

The way in which the modern idea of ​​subjectivity in relation to knowledge has been shaped is derived from this relationship. The subject is constituted as such as a knowing subject and his “I” is a What do I think?. From this perspective, identity, consciousness and the relationship between subject and object will constitute fundamental issues in the development of modern philosophy.

Criticism of the modern conception of thinking

From different contemporary philosophical traditions —which, too, have been called postmodern, to the extent that they respond to the canonical ideas of Modernity—, the necessary link between the notion of thought and the subject has been questioned. An example of this is the work of Donna Haraway (1944-), who proposes a conception of thought as a critical task of transforming the world, however, said world is not isolated from our thought as human beings, but rather actively traverses it. . This means that our human thought is only possible under the condition of relationship with the surrounding, non-human world: thinking is always thinking-with others, not only humans, but also non-humans. Hence, Haraway has elaborated the notion of a “tentative thought”, not confined to the “I”, but fundamentally based on otherness. In this sense, nature is not simply an object of knowledge for the human subject, as the canon of modern philosophy considered it, but a type of significant alterity, capable of its own agency, with which we compose our thoughts.

decolonial thought

One of the critical drifts of modern philosophical thought has been decolonial thought, which is proposed as an autonomous critical theory, located from Latin America and the Caribbean as a geopolitical horizon that, in the canonical thought of Modernity, has been systematically excluded. Decolonial thought holds that the material conditions from which one thinks are inescapable in the outcome of the thought process. It is necessary, then, to point out that the modern tradition of canonical Western thought is a tradition anchored in Europe and that, at the same time, takes colonialism as its social, political and economic context.

In other words, the very notion of what thought consists of has been formulated from a European perspective, so it is necessary to rethink thought itself from the point of view of other historical realities, namely, from the reality of the territories that were colonized and excluded. The proper operation of decolonial thought is to make visible the historicity of any definition around what it is to think and what subjects are capable of doing it.

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