In his article entitled " Thoughts " (MIND, July 1960), Mr. W. J.
Ginnane discusses the question "What is thought?" or, more accurately, "What is a thought?" Such a bold and basic question leaves one breathless, yet he has managed to say some things that are both interesting and helpful. Even if we no longer believe in the ghosts exorcised by Professor Ryle, we may still wonder what is to be said about the sort of thinking that goes on when our lips are silent and our hands are at rest, and Ginnane makes a well-considered attempt to answer our questions. There are certain important points, however, where I think his position is rather extreme, and I wish to review his discussion briefly and add some critical and supplementary comments.

	In trying to answer the question "What is thought?" the chief difficulty is that of understanding the question. What are we looking for? What do we want an answer to enable us to do? In an effort to come to grips with his subject Ginnane moves from the material mode expressed in "What is the nature of thought?" to the formal mode and the question "What is the meaning of the word 'thought'?" (p. 377), but then he limits this further by considering the phrase 'a thought' together with such idioms as "It occurred to me that...", "It crossed my mind that...", "It came to me that . . .", "It dawned on me that...", "It struck me that . . .", and so forth (p. 380).  He assures us that there is no relevant difference between the material and formal modes, presumably in justification of his subsequent concern with language.  However, there is no denying that a question about the phrase 'a thought' is much more specific than the question about the nature of thought in general, and we cannot be sure that in dropping the latter formulation we are not leaving some worthwhile questions aside. In gaining clarity we lose scope.

	For instance, a physiologist might think that the question "What is thought?" should be treated in the same way as the question "What is digestion?" and proceed to describe the workings of our nervous system as the relevant "inner process." And he in fact does us the service of finding out what goes on in us when we are thinking. When he says thinking is a neural process in the cortex, he is correct in a sense, in  the same sense that it is not empirically related to a chemical process in the liver. One may even feel that eventually he will be able to point to a particular neural event in Mary's cortex and say that a certain thought just occurred to her, for example, that she will be in Paris on her next birthday. The development of such a technique seems unlikely, but neither is it wise to set limits in advance to the amount of detail science will fill in concerning the contingent relations of thinking to electronic cortical events.
 	However, it may be tempting for philosophers who are sympathetic with this programme to shift their claims from the factual

disclosure that the thinking is affected in various ways by cortical stimulation to the stronger thesis that to talk about thoughts and thinking is to talk about cortical events or processes. But an explanation of the concept of thought is not a task for physiology. There is no logical difficulty in supposing the seat of thought might have been the liver or the left foot or that we might not have found any physical process at all related to thinking as cortical events seem to be. Nor is it particularly plausible that the thoughts we report in propositional form and which have logical relations to other thoughts should be literally identical with neural discharges in the cortex.
	If we reject this neurological analysis of thinking, however, we are tempted to ask for what I shall call, for the purposes of this paper, a "phenomenological" investigation to give the answer to our question "What is thought?" We speak of thoughts running through our heads. We say "It crossed my mind that... or "It occurred to me that . . .".  But what is it that runs through my head? What occurred to me? And here, not being satisfied with a statement of the thought, we find ourselves busily engaged in a favourite philosophical pastime we may call "hunt the referent". What is the "it " that crossed my mind.  One feels he must look back over his stream of consciousness and try to pick out that bit of flotsam which is his thought or that which occurred to him at a particular time while at a particular place.
	I say look back over the contents of one's mind since the verbs Ginnane gives us are all in the past tense, "It occurred", "It crossed", "struck", "flashed", and so on (pp. 380-381), which suggests that the thoughts came suddenly without warning. The
fact that we do not say "It is occurring to me that ..." or "It is crossing my mind that..." gives the impression that the thought is instantaneous, so that it is extremely difficult to get a close look at it. And since it comes without warning we cannot say, "It will strike me that . . ." or "It will cross my mind that . ." The word 'came', which Ginnane lists with the others, is slightly different since we can say, "It is coming to me slowly" or "Wait, it will come to me" when we are searching for a forgotten solution to a problem or trying to remember a particular name. But this is at the price of leaving off the substantival clause introduced by the word 'that' characteristic of expressions of thought.  Notice that we are not puzzled much by "His name finally occurred to me" since we understand what a name is and are not so inclined to seek for the name itself among the images and verbal fragments that pour through our minds, although it seems likely that when it occurred to us the name appeared briefly in an image or silent or spoken word.  Perhaps the question "What is a thought?" can be construed in somewhat the same way as the question "What is a name?" in that we can say that both thoughts and names occur to us at particular times, and yet we cannot identify the thought or the name with a particular image or verbal fragment in our consciousness.

	I think that what troubles us is that we want to specify a bit of flotsam that is the thought but we do not know how to describe it. When we express or report the thoughts that occur to us, we are not describing them, at least not in the way I have been calling phenomenological. This is an important point. If we want to say what a thought is in the sense of describing it, we are faced with the difficulty of saying what it is in different terms from those that we use in reporting its content, the "intentionality" of the thought, to use Ginnane's word.  Ideally one would like to be able to say that at some point the words "Peter will drop in today for coffee" passed through one's mind. But unfortunately, the well-formed proposition is seldom to be found in one's stream of consciousness.
	Ginnane also refuses to let thoughts ride on the beast of burden of the British Empiricists—the mental image (pp.386-387). However, his argument is rather obscure here because he means to reject several distinct theses which it is easy to confuse. Perhaps it would be well to list them.

	(1) It is part of the concept of thinking that thoughts consist in 	having images.
	(2) It is a fact of human psychology that whenever I (or people in 	general) have thoughts, those thoughts consist entirely in mental 	images.
	(3) At least some thoughts consist entirely in having mental 	images.
	(4)Mental images are integral or essential parts of at least some 	thoughts.
	(5) Images are never more than non-essential adjuncts to thoughts; 	they only " illustrate " thoughts.

	There are possibly other positions that could be taken concerning the role of images in thinking, but these five possibilities are sufficient (and necessary) to help clarify what Ginnane, in the space of a few sentences, says on this point.  First, he denies that "to have thoughts is to have images, or that we think 'in' images" (p. 387). This I take it, is thesis number (1) on the above list, the logical thesis, since he claims this view is "patently false because there is no self-contradiction involved in someone saying that it occurred to him at a particular time that such-and-such, whilst at the same time steadfastly denying that he had any mental images whatsoever at the time in question." He then immediately goes on to add that "not only could such a claim be made without self-contradiction, it could very often be made quite truly." This indicates that he also is denying the factual thesis number (2). His next two statements constitute a denial of thesis (3).

	In any case, no collection of images, however complicated, could ever 	fully correspond to a thought. "No images could, of themselves, 	amount to, or constitute, the thought that I report when I say, for 	example, " It occurred to me that Peter might drop in today for a 	drink ".

His reason for saying this is that "The images are equivocal in a way in which the thought is quite definite", and the position he finally adopts is number (5), that is, "Images can never be anything more than illustrations of my thought, just as pictures in a book can never be more than illustrations of the text". What he seems to be arguing is that since images are equivocal as they stand, there must be something else which gives the thought its definite character, its particularity. However, I think he goes too far when he rules out the possibility represented by thesis (4) that in some cases an image is essential to a given thought because of its particular role in connection with the thought. There would seem to be intermediate possibilities between constituting a thought and merely describing it.

	For example, suppose I ask a friend to mail a letter for me at the post office, then stop him because the image of the rather inconspicuous box set in the wall at the corner just came to mind, and I say to him "It just occurred to me that there is a post box at the corner".  I hesitate to say in this case that the image merely illustrates my thought. If the image does not constitute my thought, can we not at least say it is an integral part of it or the vehicle of the thought? Admittedly the phrases " integral part " and "vehicle" are metaphorical and rather unclear, but it is doubtful that the subject admits of greater clarity, and they do suggest a possible contrast to the metaphor of illustration.
An example of a thought even more intimately fused with an image is that of a chess player who, in the course of contemplating his next few moves, visualizes in his mind's eye a particular set-up on the board which he wants to bring about.1 The plan or thought he carries out in his future moves is embodied in the image he has of the location of the particular pieces.

	Ginnane would not agree with this suggestion, I take it, on the grounds that such images might do service for a number of thoughts. But I fail to see how this proves that images are not at times essential to the occurrence of a thought. It is perhaps true that an image of a mail box might go with "English post boxes are red" or "Some post boxes are set in walls " or "I must mail a letter", and that the image of a chess board with the men arranged on it might be connected with the thought "This position is difficult for me" or "This would make a good puzzle for The Times". But though one can describe these images in such a way that they could enter into several different thoughts, this is not fair to the examples we are considering. The images in these cases are not like photographs which are handed to us without captions and which must be explained to us or which we can use to illustrate anything we feel appropriate. One may describe the image as merely that of a mail box set in a wall, but this leaves out the fact that it came to mind as the one at the corner which is nearer than the post office, and that this fact is relevant to the situation at hand--the mailing of the letter.
1This example was suggested to me by Mr. D. F. Pears.

Likewise, the detailed image of the chess situation has significance relevant to the game in progress and is used in carrying out a particular complicated thought which it embodies. It seems plausible to say that, with the possible exception of dream images, mental images commonly appear with a particular meaning which we can then put into words or action. Perhaps Ginnane, who says that " Thought is Pure Intentionality " (p. 389), will understand me if I say that mental images have intentionality in themselves and are not always mere adjuncts to thought.  I would say that he is correct in denying that thoughts consist in images but goes too far if he says thought never involves images essentially.

	Nevertheless, it is true that we are uncomfortable when we try to describe thoughts exhaustively in terms such as images, verbal fragments, and sub-vocal utterances. If we are asked the question "What is a gazelle", we could give either a physical description of the animal or put it in a general classificatory scheme." A variety of small antelope"--we would say.  Ginnane argues that we can do neither with a thought.  All literal description fails and such phrases as "It occurred to me that . . . " are too figurative to be helpful (p. 380).  (We cannot even show a child what a thought is in the way we can show him what a pain is by jabbing him with a pin.) Nor are thoughts a species of a genus, though Ginnane clothes this point in an image that is not entirely clear. He says, "Thoughts are the only inhabitants of the realm in which they are found; there are no other creatures sufficiently similar to be dissimilar and there is no landscape in which they move " (p. 380).  But just what is the realm which thoughts inhabit?  If he means that realm defined by the linguistic frames "It occurred to me that..." and "It crossed my mind that...", then it would seem to be necessarily true, if one picked one's phrases carefully enough, that thoughts alone fill this rather artificially restricted realm. But there are all kinds of other things that go on in the mind with which to compare and contrast thoughts, such as names occurring to us, and this may be helpful. Our difficulty stems from the fact that among psychological concepts in general there is no obvious systematic and informative means of classification available, such as by genus and difference. A psychologist might dispute this or perhaps a scheme could be worked out, but there seems little we can do along these lines to help with the present question.
	But what about saying that having a thought is a "species" of mental event along with remembering, deciding, noticing, understanding, being surprised, wishing, and so on? How much do these words 'mental' and 'event' tell us?  As Ginnane points out, "mental" contrasts with "physical" and he adds another opposition between "mental" and "overt," for example," where we speak of someone doing 'mental arithmetic' in contrast to someone who is doing sums out loud or on paper" (p. 379). Here he mentions the contrast between thinking and saying. But this is rather tricky sailing.

Doing mental arithmetic is doing sums in one's head rather than on paper, and I am not sure that going through the calculations out loud without using pencil and paper is not counted as doing it in your head, even though it is overt. It is true, of course, that we do at times contrast thinking and saying, but this can be very misleading too. We should not suppose that we always think first and speak afterwards, and I know that Ginnane is not suggesting this. But there is no harm in reminding ourselves that we do not always "translate" thoughts into words but often think in words, think in the language which has become a part of us. This is important for two reasons. It helps counter the view that our thinking involves some sort of process independent of images or silent verbalizations carried on in a neutral tongue, as it were, which we then express in some particular language. Secondly, those who insist we never "perceive other minds directly" tend to overlook cases such as overhearing someone thinking out loud to himself. This is both "overt" and mental".
 
	However, I presume that Ginnane is suggesting that a mental event is one which is non-physical and non-overt. Next he asks in what ways is a thought like a event (p. 382 if.), and here he means  "physical event" since he compares the placing and dating of a thought with the placing and dating of a physical event and discusses the vain searches for a substratum of change corresponding to the physical thing's which are participants in physical events. He then poses the question "How can we reconcile the fact that thoughts are occurrences with the fact that they do not involve the alteration of any stuff at all, not even shadow-stuff such as mental imagery (p. 388). He goes on to reply that "The answer is vexing, but inevitable: we just have to learn to live with the mystery: thoughts are sui generis. Thoughts just cannot be 'explained' by equating them with something else of a more familiar kind—something we can get our teeth into and that is all there is to it." And he subsequently adds: "Thought is pure Intentionality" (p. 389).

	This gives us another mystery, however. What is "Pure Intentionality " and how can we explain datable thoughts in terms of it?  In order to fix the time of the occurrence of a thought we feel we need to have it marked by some psychological change. It might be that I can describe some image that flashed through my mind which, as it was presented to me, embodied a certain thought. Or it might have been a verbal fragment, a partial expression of the thought. Or perhaps 1 suddenly find that something falls into place with a "mental click";  I somehow know that I can go on and give the solution or explain the point. The question then is "What has the datable occurrence of these images, feelings, and so on to do with the thought as I report it?" Perhaps Ginnane would reply that it is just prejudice to suppose that there must be a phenomenological something corresponding to the thought and would maintain that we can simply date the occurrence of the thought. But it is difficult to see in what the "occurrence of a thought" consists if it were in no way connected with a psychological event of some sort.  Could a thought come to one but not in some guise that can be described to some extent phenomenologically as what went through one's mind at a certain time? And if a thought is "pure intentionality" does this mean that we could

suppose that thoughts occurred to someone whose mind was utterly devoid of images, verbal fragments, feelings and such?  We can, of course, imagine someone both telling us his thoughts and denying that he had images or feelings of the relevant kind. That is, such phenomenological trappings do not seem necessary for the thinking of intelligent thoughts. But it is more difficult to suppose someone is using the special phrases " It crossed my mind that . . ." or " It struck me that . . ." appropriately if he can say nothing more about how the thoughts came to him or what it was like, why he was inclined to use such words as " crossed ", or " struck, or " flashed".

	The point here is not that thinking consists in images nor even that thoughts must be intimately related to such but simply that they are often embodied in events that can be described in phenomenological terms, especially when their reports are introduced by the colourful phrases that Ginnane himself suggests. But we also have a mode of speech in which we report what we have thought in well-formed sentences. Sometimes the very utterance of such sentences is what we call thinking out loud. More often than not, however, our thoughts are fragmentary enough so that if someone asks us what we were thinking, we must stop and rather carefully formulate the expression of those thoughts. In this case there has been nothing running through our minds which can be phenomenologically described as complete sentences, yet in formulating the significance of what has been passing through our minds we do use complete sentences. It is true that one of the confusions we have been bothered by in the past is the idea that in describing the contents of our minds we must somehow find there a proto-type of the report we give in propositional form. The philosopher's pompous phrase "entertaining a proposition" only encourages this confusion, as it looks like an attempt to describe one's mental history phenomenologically. Nevertheless, the successive events that occur in our minds often seem intimately related to what we say occurred to us.