3 ms·
Ask HN: Ontologies of Types of Thoughts?
Does anyone have recommended reading (books, papers, articles, Wikipedia pages) on the topic of "Types of thoughts"? Other ways to put it might be "Ontologies of Thought" or "Templates for Thought". Rhetorical devices would be a subset of the broader category I'm thinking about.
I'm looking to add to a grammar nodes for thought patterns like "Playing Devils Advocate" or "Thought Experiments" or "Listicles" or "FAQs".
- quinnjh 5y agoMaybe youre looking for a way to graph those nodes and relations? Other topics coming to mind: Metacognition Category theory Set theory * if you don't find something or start your own map its definitely something i'd contribute to !
- breck 5y ago> Maybe youre looking for a way to graph those nodes and relations? This is one thing I was thinking about, eventually. For now I'm just thinking about sort of a collection of writing prompts to help me think more clearly. > its definitely something i'd contribute to Cool! The eventual destination would probably be this folder: https://github.com/publicdomaincompany/scroll/tree/main/grammar https://github.com/publicdomaincompany/scroll/tree/main/gram... For example, right now there is a "question" node. Often when writing I find it a good prompt to just start writing a bunch of questions on the journey to fleshing out an issue.
- dredmorbius 5y agoI'm aware of some possibly related notions in the context of speech. That is, there are distinct modes of speech: - Dialectic: aimed at arriving at truth or understanding - Rhetorical: persuasion - Imperative: directions or commands - Phatic: social context only, such as greetings or farwells - Performative: speech which of itself performs some action, as in "I do" in a wedding ceremony. - Narrative: telling a story. - Descriptive: relating a fact, scene, or event. Et cetera. See, e.g., Roman Jakobson: https://www.elcomblus.com/functions-of-language-by-roman-jakobson/ https://www.elcomblus.com/functions-of-language-by-roman-jak... I'm not quite sure what you have in mind as "types of thoughts". The field of psychology, and subfields of cognitive psychology and ideation might be closer to what you're looking for. (I have a heck of a time formulating useful queries / questions on psych topics myself, for some reason.) See e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_(creative_process) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation_(creative_process)
- breck 5y agoThank you. The modes of speech are indeed the class of things I was thinking about in terms of "types of thoughts". I'm interested in classifications up and down the stack, and high level categories like Narrative vs Rhetorical are useful.
- yesenadam 5y agoI can't think of a very good answer, but these books come to mind and may possibly be useful: Aristotle, Rhetoric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_(Aristotle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_(Aristotle) Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutio_Oratoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutio_Oratoria I guess there are more modern books on the subject :-) Those two are fascinating though. And "Playing Devils Advocate" reminds me of: Eric Berne, Games People Play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book) Also I've read books about informal logic that cover different domains of writing, speech, etc.
- breck 5y agoThank you for the links. Bringing it back to Aristotle times makes sense. Though also frighteningly expands the scope of my search :)