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It seems that 「思う」 can both

be "to think/consider" (actively) as in

「義父母を本当の親のように思うのは無理です」

and "to feel" (passively) as in

「母をなくした子をあわれに思う」.

When reading [an
article](http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASG1945GDG19USPT008.html) in Asahi
Shimbun, I bumped into a 3-line poem in which 「思う」 sounded quite ambiguous to
me:

> 急行にのって駅を通過するとき
>
> ベンチに腰かけている人がチラリと見える
>
> その人を私のように 思う

"I considered the person as myself"？"I felt the person was just like me"? "I
thought of the person in my way"? With no context other than the rest two
lines, does it really sound ambiguous?
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meaning ambiguity
「思う」 in 「その人を私のように　思う」：think v.s. feel
"I felt the person was just like me" is the correct interpretation.

The author of the poem (passively) felt sympathy for the person waiting in a
station skipped by express trains. Hence the explanation
「自分の人生は急行ではなく鈍行列車のようなものだ」.

Note: Actually I think the meaning of this poem as a whole is very ambiguous
and difficult to interpret, and 天声人語's explanation is one of the
possibilities. I found an
[article](http://blog.livedoor.jp/msktt/archives/52087283.html) that disagrees
with the 天声人語's explanation.
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One of my dictionaries, Shogakukan's _Kokugo Dai Jiten Dictionary_ , is pretty
good about including etymological information. Poking around in there, I've
run across two theories for the etymology of 思う that mirror the two broad
senses you mention here.

  * On the one hand, the おも in 思{おも}う may be cognate with the おも in 重{おも}い. Compare the English "to weigh something" as a synonym for "to consider", or "to ponder" and its relation to "ponderous" (i.e. "heavy").

  * On the other hand, the おも in 思{おも}う may be cognate with the おも in 面{おも}, with an underlying meaning of "to appear on one's face, as an expression of emotion or thought".

The three main senses listed are:

>   1. （はたから見た様子を示す語が上にあって）そういう顔つきをする。（気持を）顔に表わす。  
>  To have such a facial expression (when preceded by a word indicating
> appearance when seen from nearby). To express (an emotion) on one's face.
>   2. 物事を理解したり、感受したりするために心を働かす。断定、推量、回想など種々の心の働きにいう。  
>  To use one's mind to comprehend or perceive something. Indicates various
> ways of using one's mind, such as judgment, estimation, or recollection.
>   3. ある対象に心を向ける。そちらへ強く心がひかれる。  
>  To turn one's mind to a particular object. To have one's mind drawn in a
> particular direction.
>

The entry includes sample sentences from the
[_Kojiki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kojiki), [_Nihon
Shoki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Shoki),
[_Man'yōshū_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB), and
[_Taketori
Monogatari_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter),
showing that all three senses have been around for quite some time.

Looking back at the poetry in your question, 思う here doesn't strike me as all
that ambiguous _as Japanese_ , but it may get tricky in translation, as the
conceptual network of ideas expressed by 思う doesn't have a single analogous
node in the web of meaning expressed in English. Depending on context, it
could be "think", or "feel", or "consider", etc. And, for that matter, each of
these could probably be made to work in a translation of the poem above,
depending on how the rest of the translation were worded.
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