III. Thinking as the Instrument of Knowledge

But thinking as an object of observation differs essentially from all other objects. The observation of a table, or a tree, occurs in me as soon as those objects appear within the horizon of my field of consciousness. Yet I do not, at the same time, observe my thinking about these things. I observe the table, and I carry out the thinking about the table, but I do not at the same moment observe it. I must first take up a standpoint outside of my own activity, if I want to observe my thinking about the table, as well as the table. Whereas the observation of things and processes, and the thinking about them, are everyday occurrences making up the continuous current of my life, the observation of the thinking itself is a sort of exceptional state. This fact must be taken into account, when we come to determine the relation of thinking to all other objects. We must be quite clear about the fact that, in observing the thinking, we are applying to it a method which is our normal attitude in the study of all other contents of the world, but which in the ordinary course of that study is not usually applied to thinking itself.