Editing Thought (section)

===Platonism===
According to [[Platonism]], thinking is a spiritual activity in which [[Platonic form]]s and their interrelations are discerned and inspected.<ref name="BorchertThinking"/><ref name="Woolf"/> This activity is understood as a form of silent inner speech in which the soul talks to itself.<ref name="Langland-Hassan"/> Platonic forms are seen as universals that exist in a changeless realm different from the sensible world. Examples include the forms of goodness, beauty, unity, and sameness.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kraut |first1=Richard |title=Plato |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=24 April 2021 |date=2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Brickhouse |first1=Thomas |last2=Smith |first2=Nicholas D. |title=Plato: 6b. The Theory of Forms |url=https://iep.utm.edu/plato/#SH6b |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=24 April 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nehamas |first1=Alexander |title=Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible World |journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |date=1975 |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=105–117 |jstor=20009565 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20009565 |issn=0003-0481}}</ref> On this view, the difficulty of thinking consists in being unable to grasp the Platonic forms and to distinguish them as the original from the mere imitations found in the sensory world. This means, for example, distinguishing beauty itself from derivative images of beauty.<ref name="Woolf"/> One problem for this view is to explain how humans can learn and think about Platonic forms belonging to a different realm.<ref name="BorchertThinking"/> Plato himself tries to solve this problem through his theory of recollection, according to which the soul already was in contact with the Platonic forms before and is therefore able to remember what they are like.<ref name="Woolf">{{cite journal |last1=Woolf |first1=Raphael |title=Plato and the Norms of Thought |journal=Mind |date=1 January 2013 |volume=122 |issue=485 |pages=171–216 |doi=10.1093/mind/fzt012 |url=https://academic.oup.com/mind/article/122/485/171/961176 |issn=0026-4423|doi-access=free }}</ref> But this explanation depends on various assumptions usually not accepted in contemporary thought.<ref name="Woolf"/>