Philosophical premises for a scientific study of reflective thinking

The scientific study of thought has focused mainly on thought procedures rather than thought acts. The act of thinking has been interpreted as intuition, which is described as insight in psychology. This article demonstrates that the act of thinking can be understood also as a noetic act with noema emerging beyond itself and this allows a more scientifically accurate description of reflective thinking. Reflective thinking expresses the capacity of thought to engage in meta thought that can be expressed as the reciprocal implication of noetic act, which is objectifying, and dianoetic procedure, which represents an objective form of thought (i.e., language). A dianoetic procedure, evoked and directed by a noetic act, is intentional and therefore critical, in contrast to an implicit or automatic procedure, which is characterized by the lack of intentionality and an uncritical acceptance of assumptions and rules.