What is thinking?

思考是什么？

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end.

——Peter Singer (1982)

开始理性就像踏上一部上行且看不见的自动扶梯，一旦我们迈出第一步，所要旅行的距离就与我们的意愿无关，我们无法事先知道我们将在哪里结束（行程）。

——彼得·辛格（1982）

https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/introphil/chapter/peter-singer-for-tedtalks/

Thinking is important to all of us in our daily lives. The way we think affects the way we plan our lives, the personal goals we choose, and the decisions we make. Good thinking is therefore not something that is forced upon us in school: It is something that we all want to do, and want others to do, to achieve our goals and theirs.

在日常生活中，思考对我们所有人都很重要。我们的思维方式影响着我们计划生活的方式，我们选择的个人目标，以及我们做出的决定。因此，好的思维并不是在学校里强加给我们的东西：它是我们都想做的事情，也希望别人做的事情，(通过它)来实现我们的目标和他们的目标。

This approach gives a special meaning to the term “rational.” Rational does not mean, here, a kind of thinking that denies emotions and desires: It means, the kind of thinking we would all want to do, if we were aware of our own best interests, in order to achieve our goals. People want to think “rationally,” in this sense. It does not make much sense to say that you do not want to do something that will help you achieve your goals: Your goals are, by definition, what you want to achieve. They are the criteria by which you evaluate everything about your life.

这种态度(?)赋予了“理性”一词一个特殊的含义。在这里，理性并不意味着一种否认情感和欲望的思维：它意味着，如果我们意识到自己的最大利益，为了实现我们的目标，我们都想执行（?）的那种思维。从这个意义上说，人们想“理性地”思考。说你不想做有助于你实现目标的事情是没有多大意义的：从定义上讲，你的目标就是你想要实现的。它们是你评价你生活中一切的标准。

The main theme of this book is the comparison of what people do with what they should do, that is, with what it would be rational for them to do. By finding out where the differences are, we can help people—including ourselves—to think more rationally, in ways that help us achieve our own goals more effectively.

这本书的主题是比较人们做什么与他们应该做什么，也就是说，与就理性而言他们应该的事情进行比较。通过找出差异所在，我们可以帮助人们，包括我们自己，更加理性地思考，以帮助我们更有效地实现自己的目标。

This chapter discusses three basic types of thinking that we have to do in order to achieve our goals: thinking about decisions, thinking about beliefs, and thinking about our goals themselves. It also describes what I call the search-inference framework, a way of identifying the basic elements in all of these thinking processes.

这一章讨论了为了实现我们的目标我们必须做的三种基本的思考：思考决定，思考信念，以及思考我们的目标本身。它还描述了我所说的搜索推理框架，一种识别所有这些思维过程中基本元素的方法。

来源:

Jonathan Baron.Thinking and Deciding.Fourth Edition.University of Pennsylvania.