Locating Thought Insertion on the Map of Ordinary Thinking

In her account of thought insertion, Pedrini (2015) follows the prevailing view that it is an error about ‘who is thinking a thought.’ This view is based on a particular characterization of thinking as analogous to physical actions, where an object can be made, possessed, moved about, and put in and out of containers. This picture is well-suited for explaining thought insertion where the speaker talks of having the thoughts of others put into his mind. The question, ‘Who is thinking?’ can then be answered in at least two ways, as the person who has or possesses the thought, or the person who produces it. This leads into discussions about agency and its criteria. This move is understandable as part of a project to explain psychological phenomena in terms of putative underlying causes. But it can also lead away from the fine-grained analysis that Pedrini says is necessary to identify what is pathological about so-called symptoms.

The search for an underlying cause implies that ‘thinking’ is a phenomenon with an essence that is shared by all its instances. But if we look at the many ways in which the word ‘thinking’ is used, we see that it is a highly ramified concept. As Hanfling (1993) shows there are essential differences between its uses in different contexts.

The word ‘thinking’ can be used to designate an activity such as, puzzling over a problem or, composing a poem, or a piece of music. Like physical activities these forms of thinking can be done at will, or under instruction, can be stopped and started, be hard or easy, and endure for a period of time. This active thinking can be contrasted with passive thinking such as day-dreaming, or being struck by a thought, or having an image occur to one. In a footnote Hanfling cites Wittgenstein’s comment that an insomniac may be told that he cannot sleep because his ‘mind is too active.’ Hanfling says: “In this case the activity is going on in spite of the agent’s desire. One might say he is suffering rather than performing the activity. These thoughts are intrusive” (Hanfling 1993, 102–3).

Thus, we can distinguish three kinds of thinking: active, which I do; passive, which just happens; and, intrusive, which is done to me. Descriptions of thinking reveal other subtleties in how the word is used. In the following I look at deliberation, sudden understanding, and thinking as you speak.

Frankl (2004, 13) was a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Vienna who could have avoided Auschwitz by emigrating to America. His old parents were overjoyed at the possibility:

I suddenly hesitated, however. The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my brain child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them? I pondered the problem this way and that but could not arrive at a solution; this was the type of dilemma that made one wish for a “hint from Heaven,” as the phrase goes.

(Frankl 2004, 13)

Frankl says he faced a dilemma and this is what he describes, the difficulty of having to choose between equally unfavorable options. Hanfling (1993, 104–5) says a person may describe his thought process in the form of an inner conversation. However, he may affirm, deny, or be uncertain as to whether the thoughts passed through his mind in this way. So, it is not evident that an inner verbalization must have taken place.

Poincaré describes a moment of sudden understanding. Struggling with his mathematical work he set it aside to go on a geological trip. As he stepped on the omnibus:

[T]he idea came to me, without...