Noûs, 2010

Among the many innovations that mark Frege's Begriffsschrift as a revolutionary work, perhaps the most important is its presentation of the first formal system of logic. Frege believed that the introduction of a new notation, especially for the expression of generality, was necessary if the logical relationships between contents were to be made apparent. This new notation made it possible, at least in an important range of cases, to establish that a given content could be inferred from certain other contents simply by examining the ...

Psychotherapy and Personal Change: Two Minds in a Mirror, 2020

This chapter examines insight into ourselves as basic to the process of becoming ourselves more deeply. Insight into who we have been, and into the powerful forces driving identity—e.g. fantasies, wishes, desires—gives us greater control over our choices, that is, over who we will become. It also helps us be less conflicted about our choices. Insight is part of a deeper emotional understanding that may allow us to feel better, more integrated with our experience. Change at some level can happen without insight and understanding as well as with the treatment of certain phobias. Still, when considering personality change, insight and understanding are necessary to the process. Sometimes there is a sudden moment of clarity when the way forward comes into unmistakable focus. The idea is not to miss this moment, i.e. to be attuned all the time and to follow up productively. Timing is crucial in psychotherapy, and is partially an outgrowth of educated instinct. Sometimes, when a moment is missed, it cannot be recovered. This chapter gives examples of these moments. They involve perceptions of trust and understanding.

Philosophical Studies, 2008

2018

Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity’s most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms underlying this Eureka heuristic are explained within an active inference framework. First, implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction leads to a higher-order pre- diction error (i.e., the content of insight). Second, dopaminergic precision-weighting of the prediction error accounts for the intuitive confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (i.e., the feeling of insight). This insight as precision account is consistent with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. We conclude by reflecting on dangers of the Eureka Heu...

Encyclopedia of Creativity, 2011

Zenodo, 2024

Bard: "Understanding this journey can help us appreciate the complexity of human thought and communication, and the remarkable feat it is to translate the silent world of our minds into the shared language of words. It can also encourage us to be more mindful of our own internal processes and the impact of our chosen words in expressing our thoughts and ideas".

Essays in Philosophy, 2002

PsycCRITIQUES, 2007

If you have wondered what it might be like to be privy to the workings of a think tank, then reading Insight in Psychotherapy may capture that experience. This sizeable volume explores the multifaceted psychological construct of insight in 21 chapters authored by many of the most renowned modern-day psychotherapy researchers and theorists. The topic of insight has fascinated scholars, historians, and scientists for centuries. There are apocryphal stories of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, who was said to have discovered the buoyancy principle while taking a bath and then run through the streets shouting "Eureka!" (Perkins, 2001), and scientist Kekulé von Stradonitz, who ostensibly figured out the ring structure of benzene while dreaming of a snake (Benzene, 2006). Research has ranged from ethological psychologists studying the "Aha" experience in animals to scientists, psychologists, and philosophers studying human behavior. Across the 21 chapters of Insight in Psychotherapy, authors frequently refer to variations on the "Eureka" or "Aha" experience. For example, Caspar and Berger recount the classic (1927) study by Kohler in which a food-deprived ape sits in a cage with two wooden poles and a banana, "out of reach of either pole" (p. 375). When the ape, without apparent use of trial and error, had the sudden, insightful idea of putting the two poles together in order to gain access to the food, Kohler called the apparently sudden solution an "Aha experience," a term that has stuck in the literature on insight. According to editors Louis G. Castonguay and Clara E. Hill, the more than four dozen authors who contributed chapters to Insight in Psychotherapy wanted to explore the topic in a format different from a typical conference that features prepared papers, panels, and posters. Instead, they sought a forum for a freewheeling discussion of insight, particularly as it relates to psychotherapy. The group met on three separate occasions over a period of four years at Pennsylvania State University, following the October 2000 conference of the Mid-Atlantic Society for Psychotherapy Research at which this novel format was conceived. The volume begins with an engaging introduction that includes a series of quotes on insight, including Socrates' famous aphorism, "The unexamined life is not worth living" (p. 3) and the Franks' description of insight in psychotherapy as "healing through self-understanding" (p. 4). The editors tell us that the group chose insight as a focus for their meetings, and ultimately for this book, because the construct is pantheoretical, widely referenced, and likely affects psychotherapy process and outcome. From the structure of most chapters, one may deduce that each author was given a basic outline that included a definition of insight, extant research, clinical illustrations, suggestions for future research, and summary remarks. Specific topics appear to have been selected on the basis of authors' particular expertise, as for example Hill's chapter on dream analysis and insight and Ladany's writing on supervision in relation to insight. The book is divided into five sections: theoretical perspectives, empirical psychotherapy research literature, clinical issues, perspectives from basic research in psychology and philosophy, and a final chapter summarizing progress and

Twenty four centuries after Plato's formulation of the theory of ideas, it is revealed to us today in all its modernity and far-sightedness. In fact, confronting some of the elements of the theory with recent scientific discoveries, one cannot be anything but astounded by the magnificent capacity of the Athenian philosopher's investigations of the perceptible and metaphysical world, a true precursor of the times.

The Intuitive Formation of Meaning. Ed. Sven Sandström. KVHAA Conference 48, 2000

The word intuition has a certain glow to it, something luring and secretive, as if just taking it in one’s mouth would suffice to undergo it. Most people would like to be intuitive if the word is taken in the sense of being in the position to gain knowledge in a direct and immediate way. Calling a person intuitive suggests that he or she has a capacity to see things that are not apparent and to look right into the heart of matters. It reminds of having insight in the etymological sense of the word. The article discusses the role of intuition for insight. Creativity provides heuristic solutions to problems that are intractable if approached in standard, algorithmic ways. Intuition is claimed to occur during the incubation phase (Wallas 1926) and to crucially depend on embodied memory and unconscious processing of memories, such as reconstruction and recreation. Two suggestions as to how memory contributes to intuition, and by which processes are analysed and compared: Barsalou & Prinz’ (1997) and Langley & Jones’ (1988). It is argued that context-independent knowledge and contextual information, embodiment, and personal investment are equally important for intuition and creativity. Then, two theories about the processes that occur during incubation are discussed. Both suppose that intuition depends on memory and that it is not a conscious process. The first one concerns operations on mental images, the second describes how insight results from indexing and retrieval. Both processes are argued to be essential for insight. This means that reconstruction and recreation of memories play an important role to intuition, both during incubation and in recall.