School of Thinking

General Track of the School of Thinking integrates multiple modes of learning, combining thought-provoking lectures and discussions with experiential workshops and personal or group projects. It consists of a series of direct contact sessions conducted over the course of one academic year, as well as self-managed study supported by 1 on 1 consultations with the faculty. Each group of 14-26 students is hosted by a facilitator who supports the learning process and assists in making connections between various activities offered in the programme.

Most two-day sessions are divided into a “Plant” day focused on providing new input through lectures and panel discussions, followed by an “Explore” day engaging the participants to co-create the learning and build on new ideas. Plant days can be experienced remotely, while explore days require on-campus presence. 

The postgraduate School of Thinking is conducted entirely in English. It takes one academic year (two semesters) to accomplish. The curriculum comprises of 750 hours of study, which includes 174 instruction/contact hours and 576 hours of flexibly scheduled individual and group work. This amounts to approximately 2 days of direct contact learning and 3-5 days of self-managed individual and group work per month.  

Main courses of the programme: 

Thinking about Thinking 

This part of the program provides the foundational concepts and language to think – and talk – about thinking. Integrating multiple perspectives provided by cognitive science it explores the mind/brain as an embodied, biological, cybernetic system – and then asks how it is possible for such a system to perceive and represent its environment, exhibit intelligence, and be the seat of consciousness.

• What is thinking? with prof. Francis Heylighen (10h). 
• The brain with Balthazar Tirosh, M.D. (6h) 
• Embodied cognition with Meredith Root-Bernstein, PhD(4h) 

• Thinking Better (12h) with prof. Francis Heylighen, prof. Jean-Paul Van Bendegem, prof. Gerard de Zeeuw and prof. Edward Nęcka.

Thinking Toolkit 

The largest part of the curriculum provides the students with a rich array of advanced thinking frameworks, methods, and tools. It consists of several smaller modules, each introducing a certain approach to thinking.The course consists of the following parts:

• Fallacies and biases (6h) with Maciej Świeży, PhD
• Critical thinking (6h) with Karin Verelst, PhD
• Divergent and lateral thinking (6h) with prof. Edward Nęcka
• Extended mind (6h) with Orion Maxted, Katarina Petrovič, and Clement Vidal
• Co-thinking (6h) with Iwona Sołtysińska
• Dialectical thinking (6h) with Cadell Last, PhD
• Systems thinking (6h) with Stefan Blachfellner
• Complexity thinking (6h) with Sayfan Borghini, PhD
• Game thinking (6h) with Weaver, D.W. Weinbaum, PhD.
• Worldviews and identities (6h) with Paul Wouters
• Nurturing intelligence (6h) with Lotte Van Lith
• The Locus of Thought (6h) with Marta Lenartowicz, PhD

Beautiful Minds

Beautiful Minds is a guided study in going beyond extraordinary contributions to human culture to recognize the minds that were able to call them to life. Inspired by the practice of art appreciation, the course asks: “What if minds could be experienced and appreciated for their beauty?”. It invites the students to explore and celebrate unique ways of thinking, thus helping them to expand their own range of approaches to how one could think. It is founded on a specific philosophical and aesthetic toolkit, explained in introductory lectures (4h) and followed by interactive workshops (10h). It is facilitated by Weaver D.R. Weinbaum, PhD.

Thinking Studio

Serving as space for integrating new learning and translating it to life outside the program, the Thinking Studio is a recurring workshop that aims for stability and containment among all the creative chaos. Facilitated by the program founder or current director, the workshop provides a group learning environment for integrating the teaching and learning processes happening in the entire programme. Special emphasis is put on the integration of the new knowledge, ideas, and skills into the unique everyday practice of each student.

Thinking Studio doubles as a source of inspiration and guidance for individual projects carried out by the students. It presents them with three long-term tasks that can be adapted to specific personal and professional contexts.

• Intervention (task 2) happens in social context. The participants choose a specific problem caused or worsened by apparent limitations of thinking – and then try to understand it deeper, possibly helping develop way to go beyond the limitations.
• Dialogue (task 3) is a creative writing exercise in which the students come to grips with various potential parts that their own minds consist of.

This course is facilitated by Maciej Świeży, PhD or Marta Lenartowicz, PhD. It  comprises of 26 hours of workshops, and 3 hours of individual consultations.

Engaged Thinking

From its inception the VUB has always prided itself on its guiding philosophy of Free Thinking, as reflected in its mottos ‘Thinking should never submit itself’, ‘Reason and Engage’ and ‘Nothing is unthinkable’, and more generally in its striving for diversity of perspectives, interdisciplinary collaboration, and engagement with contemporary issues. The free, critical, creative and independent thinking, being the focus of our programme, constitutes a core element of the university’s DNA and is consistently taught in several well established open seminar series, organised around the campus.

Our programme interlinks these initiatives, making the participation in the selected series into an integral part the curriculum. The students select at least one among the on-going series and follow it throughout one semester. In addition to the regular participation, the students carry out an observation assignment designed to advance their understanding of the processes of co-thinking.