The epigraph, from Ursula Le Guin’s science fiction novel The Left 
Hand of Darkness, describes the encounter of protagonist Genly Ai with 
Faxe, acolyte of the Zen- like cult of the Handdarata and their tradition 
of unlearning (57). Given to negatives (57), the Handdarata would 
immediately recognize unthought as indicating a kind of thinking 
without thinking. There is thought, but before it is unthought: a mode 
of interacting with the world enmeshed in the eternal present that 
forever eludes the belated grasp of consciousness.
Unthought may also be taken to refer to recent discoveries in 
neuroscience confirming the existence of nonconscious cognitive processes inaccessible to conscious introspection but nevertheless essential for consciousness to function. Understanding the full extent of 
their power requires a radical rethinking of cognition from the ground 
up. In addition, because the very existence of nonconscious cognitive 
processes is largely unknown in the humanities, unthought indicates the terra incognita that beckons beyond our received notions of 
how consciousness operates. Gesturing toward the rich possibilities 
that open when nonconscious cognition is taken into account, unthought also names the potent force of conceptualizing interactions 
between human and technical systems that enables us to understand more clearly the political, cultural, and ethical stakes of living in contemporary developed societies.
The first step toward actualizing this potential is terminological 
ground clearing about conscious, unconscious, and nonconscious 
mental processes.