What is Thinking

Digital technologies and AI apps are challenging our understanding of thinking. Is thinking an analytical, linear process a machine can follow, or is it a unique process, we have yet to understand. Do animals think? Is human thinking unique? In this course we will ask what it means to think: Is thinking a conscious or unconscious process? Are cognitive processes and digital processing a thinking? Is Dreaming visual thinking? And, is thinking free?

We will explore different means for understanding thinking: psychological, philosophical physio-neurological, along with cultural narratives myths about what thinking involves. We will consider the writings of Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, de Beauvoir, Deleuze, Hayles, Wundt, de Saussure, Freud, Latour, to name a few. We will ask whether art is a specific mode of thinking and whether there are ways by which design can invoke or enhance thinking.