No. 18 2007

An ecological approach to thinking

This article explores possible paths and steps in an attempt to conceptualize thinking apart from cognitivism and dualism within the frame of an ecological psychology. The term ‘ecological’ should be understood, and will be used, in a double way, first, meaning a psychology which regards the organism-environment mutuality to be the unit of analysis, and, second, a psychology which grasps the special forms and nature of human life. This double perspective on thinking is needed. Taken together, two equally important theoretical perspectives and their roots have the potentials for overcoming dualism in a concept of thinking. In addition to James Gibson’s ecological psychology, activity theory has a realist scope for psychology, and it is a theory of human social and societal life. In the article is focused on ‘anticipation’ which is regarded as essential in thinking. Possible sources for anticipation are explored, and it is claimed that an ecological concept of anticipation needs to begin with the qualities of the environment and the organism-environment mutualism, and not with the assumed “qualities” of an individual’s mind. This analysis is ‘ultra-realistic’ and ‘supra-individual’ and, thus, tries to go beyond circular explanations of thinking by thinking. It is concluded that the dialectics of the ‘global situation’ might be a proper methodological unit of analysis derived from the theoretical analysis of anticipation and thinking. Hence, the analysis aims to contribute to an integrated general psychology and to go beyond a cognitive view on ‘cognition’.