Denken

English summary: Why does, when someone is thinking, not just a certain process occur in the brain? Why is it odd to follow Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and say it is thinking just as we say it is thundering? What does it mean when Martin Heidegger says that science does not think? Descartes and Hegel maintained that consciousness and self-consciousness are conceptually necessary conditions of thinking - a competence of humans, not of animals. Moreover, the conceptual stucture of human...
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English summary: Why does, when someone is thinking, not just a certain process occur in the brain? Why is it odd to follow Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and say it is thinking just as we say it is thundering? What does it mean when Martin Heidegger says that science does not think? Descartes and Hegel maintained that consciousness and self-consciousness are conceptually necessary conditions of thinking - a competence of humans, not of animals. Moreover, the conceptual stucture of human languages rests on common and joint recollection (Holderlin's Mnemosyne ), not only on individual memory. Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer shows that intentional actions, including intentional thinking, are already mediated by well established forms of human cooperation and practice. Reflective thinking means in this context making the norms of such practices explicit. Theories of cognition and philosophy of mind must show the differences, not just the similarities, of human knowledge and animal cognition in order to fulfil the aims of a much needed differential anthropology. German description: In welchem Sinn ist es nicht ein Gehirn, das denkt, wenn einer denkt? Warum denkt es nicht in mir, so wie es blitzt, wie Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in einem beruhmten Aphorismus sagt? Warum ist es nicht vollig absurd, wenn Martin Heidegger erklart, die Wissenschaft denke nicht? Wie verhalt sich das Denken zum Bewusstsein, zum Gedachtnis, zur Sprache, zum absichtlichen Handeln, zu Praxisformen und sozialen Normen? Wie entwickelt es sich und wie mussen wir es entwickeln? Wozu ruft uns Kant auf, wenn er uns zum Selbstdenken aufruft? Was Denken ist, ist am Ende die Grundfrage der Philosophie des Geistes und zugleich auch jeder philosophischen und differentiellen Anthropologie. Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer zeigt, dass die ubliche philosophy of mind und das Theoretisieren in den empirisch gestutzten cognitive sciences nicht den menschlichen Geist modellieren, sondern bloss erst biologische oder besser animalische Verhaltensschemata erklaren.