Full Idea
Empedocles assumes that thinking is either identical to or very similar to sense-perception.
Gist of Idea
For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception
Source
report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], A86) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 9
Book Reference
'The First Philosophers', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 2000], p.157
A Reaction
Not to be sniffed at. We can, of course, control our thinking (though we can't control the controller) and we contemplate abstractions, but that might be seen as a sort of perception. Vision is not as visual as we think.