Let us go back to the statement that thinking essentially consists in operating with signs. My point was that it is liable to mislead us if we say thinking is a mental activity. The question what kind of an activity thinking is is analogous to this: “Where does thinking take place?” We can answer: on paper, in our head, in the mind. None of these statements of locality gives the locality of thinking. The use of all these specifications is correct but we must not be mislead by the similarity of their linguistic forms into a false conception of their grammar. As, e.g., when you say: “Surely, the real place of thought is in our head”. The same applies to the idea of thinking as an activity. It is correct to say that thinking is an activity of our writing hand, of our larynx, of our head, and
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of our mind, so long as we understand the grammar of these statements. And it is, furthermore, extremely important to realise how by misunderstanding the grammar of our expressions, we are led to think of one i[m|n] particular of these statements as giving the real seat of the activity of thinking.