Imageless Thoughts

In our text they discuss the concept of “imageless thoughts”. I find this concept to be interesting for several different reasons. Imageless thoughts are those such as searching, doubting confidence and hesitation. The fact that he came up with a concept to explain how exactly judgments were made is fascinating. Once I read this I was immediately drawn to the way he experimented and made his discoveries.

His technique involved giving his subjects problems to solve and then ask them to report on the mental operations they engaged in to solve them. They were also asked to describe the types of thinking involved at different stages of the problem solving process. How could someone come up with the idea that we have “imageless thoughts” from such a simple experiment such as this one.

Does this mean that God could be categorized as possibly a subcategory under an imageless thought in some sense? People are constantly searching and even doubting at some points in their lives whether God exists or not. I had never heard of imageless thoughts before but after reading this it makes sense that they would be imageless, when you are searching for something you do not have an idea of what it may look like, same goes with doubting or hesitating. I cannot think of any other thoughts that do not have an image that go along with them.

http://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1074810630828_527067884_3/Oswald%20Kulpe.htm

The above website gives us a little more information on who Kulpe was and some of his other psychological findings.